Kitsune Curse
by NormanWhitesmith
Summary: Through an unexpected turn of events, Luigi gets turned into a kitsune by Kamek. Our fluffy friend Luigi now has to survive being the cutest thing in the universe and the quest for the cure with the help of Mario. While Kamek is going to do everything in his power to stop them, just what is Bowser planning?
1. Chapter 1: The Perfect Plan

_Enjoy the story! Right now, some chapters are being edited to fix some errors as well as paragraph formatting problems, so if a chapter's paragraph formatting seems off, that means I haven't gotten to it yet. Overall, I hope you enjoy this story and I always love getting reviews telling me how I did, so please leave a review! Without further ado, here's Chapter One._

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Chapter 1: A Perfect Plan

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Kamek smiled as he started putting the finishing touches on his potion. He had created the perfect plan to get rid of that rotten conniving Mario, and for once, things were going smoothly and perfectly. A sudden bang as the door to the laboratory swung open and hit the castle wall yanked Kamek from his thoughts. The newcomer was none other than King Bowser!

"Ludwig told me that you had come up with the perfect plan to get rid of that pesky plumber," Bowser stated flatly, though Kamek could almost pick up a note of disbelief in his voice. "So I've decided to come and see how the progress was coming."

After standing there silently for a moment, Kamek realized that Bowser wanted him to show him his work.

"W-w-well your surliness," stuttered Kamek as he shifted his papers containing his precious research around frantically. "The idea all started with this." Kamek held up a Super Leaf into the light for Bowser to see.

"Yes that's a Super Leaf. So what?" Bowser huffed. "What are you going to do, make me a pendant that allows me to use power-ups?"

"Now that's just plain stupid! Who would do that?" Kamek replied. "Now tell me my king, do you know how this specific power-up works?"

Bowser stood there for a second thinking it through before giving up and throwing up his hands into the air in defeat.

"No I don't. Tell me how they work," Bowser demanded. "And in English, too."

Kamek paused for a second, knowing that Bowser didn't want, nor would he understand the scientific rundown of his project.

Trying to phrase it the best he could, Kamek began to speak. "Well, when that nincompoop plumber uses one of these, Mario grows a tail and an extra set of ears due to a chemical compound called-" Kamek caught himself before he got into more complicated things that Bowser had no hope of understanding. Bowser noticed this and nodded his head as if to say 'go on'. "Umm… to put it simply, there's a thingy inside each super leaf that alters their bodies, but disappears whenever they get hurt, which causes their new appendages to disappear. This happens because the thingy that's inside each leaf is in a small dose, if you will. It's in very small doses and affects very little of that plumber and disappears after awhile, to reiterate. I believe if I make the leaves more powerf-"

"FOOL!" Bowser roared, cutting Kamek off. "We will get wiped off the face of this earth if that happens!"

Kamek started sweating bullets. He knew he only had one more chance to try to appeal to the King before he loses his trust and approval to go through with this.

"P-p-please let me finish, your grouchiness," stuttered Kamek nervously. "What I'm saying is that if we were to increase the amount of thingy significantly, the effects of it would be quite peculiar. I found that if the effects of the small amount of thingy in a leaf could cause that pesky plumber to grow a tail and extra set of ears, imagine what a significantly larger amount can do! I also found that an 'un-ripe' leaf has a good amount larger dose of the thingy in it and it's effect is somewhat different."

Kamek finished, hoping for his life, almost literally, that he got through to Bowser.

"I really don't get what you're saying here," said Bowser irritably.

"Well, to sum it all up…" Kamek paused for a moment and scanned Bowser's scowling face. He knew that he had to win him over with his next sentence in order for him to be able to perform his plan. Kamek prayed that this would work. "With the increased amount of thingy in my serum I'm making ingested by Mario… ummm, how do I put this? Let's just say a tiny little animal can't easily go around saving the princess for a number of reasons."

Understanding washed over Bowser's face like a wave at high tide, and his scowl morphed into a grin. "If this serum really does what you say it will, then you have my full support!" said Bowser joyously with a hearty guffaw. "Can you finish it tonight and put it into effect? I know that Mario is speaking at the Multi-Kingdom conference tonight and wouldn't it be humiliating for him to go down a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder in front of everybody?"

Kamek felt like bursting from joy. He had single handedly created the key to stopping Mario, as well as pleasing the King!

"Yes sir, I only need to add one more ingredient," said Kamek as he put in some sour looking fluid from a vial on the table into the concoction. "It's now finished and I'll leave immediately to put some into Mario's food and it'll take about four hours for it to take full effect. I found it will work best if ingested."

Kamek then picked up the flask containing the serum, put a cork into it, then ran over to his broom waiting for him in the corner and flew out a nearby window on it. The early afternoon sun shone down on the Darklands in its full glory, but what made it even sweeter was that an enemy to the Darklands was about to be eliminated. As the air flowed through his robe, Kamek was lost in his imagination about what great promotions he was to get for pulling this off.

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Kamek finally arrived at the borders of Toad Town and after a few toads in the suburbs ran off screaming, Kamek realized he forgot to make himself invisible. After that was said and done, he flew over to the house of the infamous Mario, even marked with Mario's name with large letters over the door.

' _Well isn't he quite humble_ ,' thought Kamek with a slight sneer on his face, ' _but now, how will I get in?'_

Kamek didn't have to wonder long as he found himself drawn to the scent of pasta being cooked flowing out an open window.

' _Wow_ ,' thought Kamek, _'If we weren't mortal enemies, I'd totally ask him for his recipe!'_

As Kamek flew into the window undetected, he found the chubby (possibly overweight?) 24 year old man working over the hot stove. Kamek watched as Mario set up the table for one and set out a cup of water and a plate heaping full of pasta onto the table. As he turned away, Kamek took his chance and quietly uncorked the flask and added it to the water. It was not a moment too soon either, because as Kamek backed away from the drink Mario added… a note? Kamek started feeling flashes of heat as he realized just how much he messed up. got as close as he could to the note as he could without risking detection and read it:

 ** _Luigi,_** ** _I made you dinner because I know how much you like my pasta. I can't wait to see you at the meeting tonight, because even with all my fame and everyone worshipping me rather mindlessly, it's still nice to see a familiar face like your's in the crowd. You've always been more important to me than anything else and despite everyone saying you're a scaredy cat, I know the truth. Those scars that cover you from the time you saved me shows who the true bravest hero is. You're more important to me than you'll ever know. Here's to the true unsung hero._** ** _~Mario_**

Kamek almost sneered in disgust at the letter. Not only did he fail his mission and get the wrong man, but he also gets to deal with this sappy garbage? And above it all, he was confounded that the stupid green human embodiment of a shadow was getting the serum he slaved over. Kamek was aroused from his thoughts as he heard the front door open and Mario yelling as he was exiting.

"Little bro, I made you dinner. It's on the table. I've got things to attend to. See you tonight!"

Kamek suddenly heard a thumping sound as somebody started coming down the stairs. Not knowing why, he grabbed the note at the last possible second and hid it in his robe. Something told him it would be better for his purposes if Luigi didn't read that. As soon as Kamek was hovering near the ceiling again, the taller of the two twin brothers strolled in the room and spotted the pasta and water on the table. Kamek could read that there was a certain degree of sadness on the green man's face and this was confirmed as Luigi started talking to himself, unaware that there was an unwelcome presence in the room listening too.

"It's not fair. I know you mean well, but you always get all the credit. I'm just the worthless shadow of a great hero. I don't know why I exist," Luigi lamented. "But I know you'll always be my loving older brother and you've deserved your fame. Here's to you, big bro."

And with that he picked up the tainted water and drank it all down. After finishing Luigi looked down at his cup, puzzled. "Wow, that was some good tea," noted Luigi, no longer as sad looking. "I always knew he was a good cook, but I didn't know he could also kill it at making tea."

Luigi set down the cup and started putting the pasta in the fridge. "I'm just not that hungry right now Mario, I'm sorry," said Luigi as he exited the room. "Now I just need to take a shower and get ready for the event."

Kamek, who watched this entire weird exchange that Luigi had with himself, was still angry from the fact that he had messed up, but he stopped fuming as soon as something strange had caught his eye. Kamek watched on in strange fascination as he noticed a medium-sized patch of hair on the back of Luigi's head start to change color as he was walking out of the room towards the bathroom. The dark ebony brown started to lighten up and very quickly changed color completely to a more blonde color.

Kamek smiled a little to himself ' _maybe this wasn't a total loss_ ,' he thought. ' _I could collect a blood sample from him after the transformation completes and I could attempt to improve the serum so that I could use an even better formula on Mario! But even so, I need to go off to tell Bowser what happened…'_

And with that, Kamek flew out the open window... but only after he grabbed the pasta recipe that he saw sitting on the counter, of course.

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 _Again, please leave a review and mind the "construction" on the story. Thank you for reading!_ _-Norm_


	2. Chapter 2: Two Types of Scars and a Tail

_Norman Whitesmith back for the much anticipated chapter two of Kitsune Curse (probably not that anticipated though) !One thing I forgot to put in my last author's note was that for now I'm rating this K+, but that might change. With the way I have the story partially planned right now, I don't see it changing, but the story I have written isn't fully developed yet, so it just might change. Also, thank you for the reviews that have already come in , I really appreciate it! I'll try my best to fix paragraphs, which seems to be the main complaint, so please keep reviewing this so I can improve it more. We last left off with Luigi drinking the serum created by Kamek. What will happen? Okay, unless you randomly clicked the link for this chapter somewhere off the internet (I don't know what you looked up to get this story as a search result. It was probably weird.) or haven't read the summary, you already know what's to go down. So remember, if you haven't deleted your internet history recently, you better do it now! You'll thank me later! Personal experience! With that mostly pointless paragraph out of the way, here's chapter two where we finally start focusing on good ole' Weegie. Enjoy!_

Chapter 2: Two Types of Scars and a Tail

Luigi never asked for this. He never asked to exist. Especially in the shadow of a great man, who just so happened to be his older brother. Heck, his brother was only older than him by about five minutes, but he still got the title of older! Luigi constantly lamented his existence due to the fact that he believed that he'd never be the one in the spot light and that he would always be the one left to clean house. Luigi, as much as he hated it, constantly wished he was in his brother's place, even though Luigi knew that Mario earned his place at the top and did it fair and square. Luigi was well aware of this fact, but couldn't help but feel sorry for himself. He remembered the time that for once Mario was the damsel in distress as the king of the ghosts, King Boo, had trapped him in a painting and Luigi had to traverse a haunted mansion full of actually dangerous ghosts to save him. But in the end, all that got him was hurt and the title of "fraidy-cat".

Luigi remembered all too well the cause of the scars that covered his back and chest. It was the final boo that needed to be captured in order to get to Mario. It had seemed like every other Boo chase that had happened to Luigi that night to where the Boo phased through the walls of different rooms in order to try to escape. Luigi's only mistake was that he didn't notice the Boo had lead him to a room that he had never seen before, nor entered. Luigi entered the room, ready to suck up the rest of that confounded ghost, only to find himself surrounded by a strange type of ghost; ones he had never seen before with sharp fangs, giant claws, and blood red eye sockets. Luigi didn't last long as he was heavily outnumbered by the new ghosts ten to one. His screams of pain could have been heard from a mile away. Luigi's vision kept flashing red as wave after wave of unbearable pain seared his body and as each of the ghosts kept biting and clawing deep into his flesh. But that wasn't the worse of it; The worse was the biggest of the group stood by, just staring straight into Luigi's eyes. Those dead glowing red sockets just burning themselves into Luigi's soul and memory forever. Luigi didn't know how he did it, but somewhere in the midst of the pain, he managed to pull out the poultergust and suck up all the ghosts that were attacking him. Unfortunately for him, it isn't always that simple and as he was sucking up the biggest of the ghosts, it gave him one last scarring look and bit down on his shoulder. Hard. Luigi screamed even louder this time to where it could have been heard from his house, which was about 100 miles away. It didn't take long for Luigi to run out of the mansion and to Egadd , who gladly fixed up the wounds the best he could.

But no matter how much Egadd could fix Luigi's outer wounds, the damage to his mind was beyond fixing. Before coming to the Mushroom Kingdom and as he was growing up in Brooklyn, Luigi was quite average. He wasn't known to be scared of everything, nor was he known for very much at all. He was simply Luigi, who would gladly help anybody out anytime. Even when he first came to the Mushroom kingdom, he didn't seem scared of much, but did the housework at home simply because somebody needed to. It was that night in the Mansion that happened about two years after he and Mario came, however, that permanently messed him up. Even after saving Mario, Luigi couldn't shake the fear that came upon him from being in the Mansion. No matter where he was, all it took was something to trigger the memory of those red eye sockets boring into him and he would be lying on the ground shaking uncontrollably and crying in a matter of seconds. After this occurring in the middle of a conversation with some neighborhood toads and seemingly randomly in public enough times, his title of "Scaredy cat" came to be. Eventually this began to weigh down on Luigi's character and from the average man that others had known him to be, he slowly became what others described him as, those scars hidden from view by his shirt haunting him whenever he looked at them.

Luigi sighed as he took off his shirt and looked in the bathroom mirror at himself. Scars dotted his chest like scribbles in a two year old's drawing and they looked almost blood red, as if recently given, even though the accident was about four years ago when he was twenty. Luigi slowly undressed ((A/N: As easy as it would be to do, this isn't going to be perverted. Calm down! I'm trying to stick to the K+ rating)) himself and looked again at the scars in the mirror once more. It just wasn't fair. Those scars almost are the same color as the color of the ghost's crimson e- No! He wasn't going to think about it. He managed to go for about a year without having a panic attack and he wasn't about to trigger one now! The look of fear and sadness on Luigi's face evaporated in favor of a defiant one, as if to say 'I'm not scared of you anymore!' Luigi sighed as he knew he wasn't fooling anybody and ran an ungloved hand over his hair, but stopped when he felt something curious. His hand had come across a patch of hair that seemed significantly softer than the surrounding hair. It almost felt like one of the softest newborn blankets he had ever felt. Luigi tried to twist his head so he could see the hair, but it was hopeless due to the hair being on the back of his head. Luigi gave up and started to get into the shower.

Luigi loved the shower. It seemed like the perfect place to calm down and forget life's problems with the warm water running over him, almost soothingly as if to say 'It's alright! We'll be with you and comfort you as long as you want!' Luigi loved to take very long showers that lasted until the hot water ran out, which luckily being the unofficial house keeper, he could do on a regular basis. Luigi started lathering up the soap in his hair and once again came across the weird soft spot, which still felt extraordinarily soft even being wet and plastered to his head. Unfortunately, as Luigi was washing his hair, he got the dreaded soap in his eyes. Pain made Luigi's vision red with pain. Almost red like -No! But it was too late and the flashback had already started. Luigi could feel the death stare coming from the ghost almost as if it were right there. Those eyes sucking him in further. Suddenly a sharp burst of pain coming from Luigi's lower back ripped him away from those eyes. It felt as if his tail bone was ripping itself out and lengthening. Tears mingled with the shower water as if they were one and Luigi slowly pulled himself away from the water as to avoid inhalation of it. The sharp jeering pain was joined with a burning sensation in the very same spot. The pain was almost unbearable, but then, almost as suddenly as the pain began, it stopped completely. Luigi just sat there on the floor of the shower with water hitting him, at a loss of what to do. But he moved out of the flow of water, didn't he… Luigi slowly turned around and saw that although he was out of the water flow his tail wasn't. WAIT, HIS WHAT?! Luigi was shocked and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. Protruding out of the base of his spine was a weird blonde colored tail. 'Is this mine?' Luigi wondered to himself as he slowly reached out and touched it. It felt as soft as the spot on the back of his head and shivers were sent down Luigi's spine as he felt the sensation of him touching it. It was definitely his and it was attached to him. He slowly got up, his new tail still somewhat dragging in the water on the floor of the shower. Regardless of the mysterious appearance of a new limb, it was still and limb and needed to be washed and Luigi shakily began to wash it, still shuddering every time he felt his touch on it.

To say Luigi was confused would be an understatement. It kind of reminded him of a power up that he had used long ago called a super leaf that gave him an extra set of ears and a tail, but the power up had long disappeared. Moreover, although it gave him a tail and ears, he couldn't feel it (e.g. if somebody touched the super leaf tail while he wasn't looking, he wouldn't be able to tell that somebody touched it) if anybody touched it. Another difference was that it was a raccoon's tail and not a seeming fox's tail and he couldn't control the super leaf tail and it sort of did what he wanted, but after finding that he could move his new one, Luigi could tell that he had control over this tail. Luigi stepped outside of the shower and closed the door only to be greeted with a jolt of pain and as he looked back, he realized he closed the shower door on his tail. Luigi groaned as he turned around and opened the door to free the new mysterious limb. 'How did this even happen-' Luigi wondered to himself when he was suddenly pulled from his thoughts by a weird vibration sensation that he could feel throughout his body. When it stopped Luigi realized he had been shaking and he was now completely dry. Luigi also realized that he had made the rest of the room wet and would have to clean it up later. "Whhhhyyyy?" Luigi moaned "Why is this happening to me?" He then left the room promising to clean it up later as he headed to his room to get dressed for the ceremony. Wait! How was he going to go to the ceremony like this? Luigi looked back at his tail, moved it back and forth a few times and sighed for probably the millionth time that day. He knew that moping wasn't going to get him anywhere, so he walked up the stairs to his room to get dressed and to try and figure something out, feeling his tail thumping on every step he went up. Luigi reached his room and got to work after running his hands through his hair one more time. "Hmm, that's odd," said Luigi out loud to himself "It almost feels as if the soft spot of hair got bigger." Unbeknownst to Luigi, the soft spot HAD spread and more of his hair was the blonde color. Luigi started to get dressed by pulling on his boxer shorts, which luckily still fit underneath the tail, but when he tried putting on his overalls he was greeted with even more pain as his tail wasn't going to be having any of being put in overalls and after trying a few more times to shove his tail into the overalls unsuccessfully, Luigi knew he couldn't wear them. But what else could he wear? Luigi sat down on his bed and sighed and grabbed his tail. Where did it come from? Why is it here? Luigi looked down at the tail, eyeing it suspiciously. 'Is this some sort of sick prank pulled by Mario' Luigi stroked it and was once again greeted by the sensation of feeling. 'No,' Luigi thought 'This is way to intricate to be a prank. But at least it's soft and warm too…' before Luigi knew it, he had fallen asleep on the bed, snuggling his new tail, completely unaware of the trials that were soon to face him in the very near future as more of his hair turned blonde in his sleep.

 _And that's the end of chapter two! What did you all think? I don't have much to say except that the ghost scene was probably the most violent this story will get, but if I have to, I will change the rating to T. Other than that, please review and tell me how to improve this. Next chapter is where things get fun. Stay tuned! Norm out, and don't forget to erase your internet history!_


	3. Chapter 3: The Curse Truly Begins

_Norm is back! Sorry there was a delay in bringing you chapter three, but I was having computer troubles. Luckily through the time that I was unable to write the third chapter, I had plenty of time to think and consolidate some story details and make the story better! I'd like to give a big thanks to the people who took the time to review the story and give me advice. It was brought to my attention that the flashback scene I had last chapter could have been better if I added some dialogue. So thank you reviewer and I will add dialogue next flashback and make it better. Keep reviewing please, because I actually do read each and every review and try to integrate the advice into my next chapter. So this is chapter three where things begin to get interesting and to quickly clarify something, the aforementioned ceremony is a annual get together of the neighboring friendly kingdoms and the rulers say what's going on with their kingdoms. I'm putting that into the Author's note because I can't find a way to integrate it into the story very well at this point. One of my main things I'm trying to avoid while writing is making available items too convenient, like "Good thing I had my shark-repellant bat spray handy." So that can be difficult to avoid at times. Enough stalling, without further ado, here's chapter three! (side note, I literally name the chapters on the spot as I finish typing the authors note)_

Chapter 3: The Curse Truly Begins

Luigi was awoken from his unscheduled nap by a strange burning feeling on the skin on his chest. Luigi moaned as he got up, shaking away the drowsiness that hung over him, but was cut short by pain shooting through his spine. Luigi instantly shot awake and looked down. His elbow was resting on and digging into his tail. "Urgh, I thought that was a dream," Luigi moaned as he absentmindedly got up and went over to the mirror to look at his scars once more before getting dressed. A loud gasp filled the tiny house as Luigi beheld what was in the mirror. Instead of being able to look at the scars there appeared to be thick white hair covering his chest and the scars. Luigi tentatively reached down and felt the hair. It was as soft as the fur on his tail and the spot on the back of his head. Luigi withdrew a shaky hand from the patch of what he now deemed as fur and got a view of another shock. It appeared that a good portion of his hair turned blonde and as Luigi touched it, he found that it was the same texture as the fur on his chest and tail. "What's happening to me?" Luigi whimpered.

Luigi was blasted from his thoughts when the chime of a cuckoo clock echoed through the halls of the tiny house. "Oh no! I only have one hour before the ceremony starts!" yelped Luigi as he quickly grabbed his nearby overalls. "But how in the world will I go to the ceremony if I can't even put on my overalls?" asked Luigi to himself as he looked back at his tail, wagging it back and forth a few times, still getting used the ability of moving and being able to feel it. Suddenly Luigi got it! He worked at a casino once and even after he left the job, the manager let him keep the uniform! Luigi rushed over to the closet at the speed of light to grab the old uniform resting at the back of it. Luigi pulled on the pants with relative ease and pulled on the shirt without any problem, except that his tail still stuck out where the shirt met the pants. "How do I do this?" Luigi mused to himself, but after trying a few times to gently wrap his tail around his torso, careful not to hurt himself, he actually managed to hide his tail to where nobody could tell anything suspicious was going on in the first place, as if anyone was looking in the first place. With that taken care of, Luigi pulled on the vest and put on the clip on bowtie, ready to face anything the evening had in store for him, while looking fabulous. But another problem faced Luigi: how was he going to hide the inexplicable blonde hair on his head (as if all of the other things going on were any more explainable)? After closer examination, Luigi noticed that the blonde hair was for the most part "isolated" to the top of his head, which could easily be hidden by his good ole' hat that he wore every day. Luigi pulled on his hat and looked in the mirror. Other than wearing something other than his usual overalls, he looked completely normal and Luigi was now ready.

Without as much as a second of hesitation, he rushed out the door of the tiny house and started to run the five mile trail that lead to the castle that loomed over the mushroom kingdom fantastically in the distance. The lovely sunset played and tangoed with the leaves of the trees that sat on the edge of the path, casting it's light through the leaves, almost setting them ablaze with a glow of their own. Luigi knew he had a small amount of time to spare, so he stopped running about one and a half miles from Toad town to rest in a nearby clearing with a nice rock and pond that he loved to visit when he had time on his hands. Luigi was busy sitting on the rock, absorbing the sun's rays, when a sudden rude "ahem" was heard. Luigi opened his eyes from sun bathing to be met with oddly skinny legs right in front of his face. Luigi groaned and looked up to be face to face with, or rather face to knees with none other than Waluigi. "Hey L-oser," Waluigi sneered "going somewhere?" Luigi sighed, knowing it would be better to not give this creep the time of day "Will you please just buzz off? I was having a very lovely evening until you showed up." Luigi stated calmly. Luigi was caught off guard as Waluigi shot out his right arm to pick up Luigi by the chest of his shirt and pin him against a tree with his legs dangling helplessly about twelve inches off the ground. "Listen coward," Waluigi spat "I'm better than you'll ever be, heck who even wears fuzzy undershirts, and I-" Waluigi paused, the look of pure hatred on his face melting away, being replaced by a look of bewilderment. "W-w-what's happening to your ears?" Waluigi stuttered as a wave of fresh pain hit the sides of Luigi's head, accompanied by a burning feeling. Within an instant Waluigi dropped Luigi to the ground and ran off yelling "Stay away from me weirdo", but Luigi lost his hearing before Waluigi shouted that as the pain in his ears increased it's intensity.

Luigi lay writhing on the grass as the pain steadily increased, but as unexpectedly as it started, the pain stopped and with a pop in his ears, Luigi could hear again, and seemingly way better than before. "I wonder what that was?" Luigi murmured to himself as he dusted off his luckily unsoiled attire and grabbed his hat that must have fell off in the small scuffle. However, he was faced with a small problem as his hat refused to be put on and Luigi felt pain in his ears as he tried to push his hat down. "Wait a second. Why am I feeling pain in my ears if I'm pushing down on the top of my head?" Luigi asked himself as he ungloved a hand and began to run it along the sides of his head. Luigi felt nothing but hair where his ear should have been and his panic mounted when he felt a pair of furry thingies on the top of his head. Luigi slowly stepped towards the small nearby pond to look at his reflection and his sudden loud high-pitched scream echoed through the land, even disturbing a pair of goombas playing five miles away. Man Luigi was good at screaming. Reflecting back at Luigi from that tiny pond was a vivid picture of Luigi painted in water, but there was one problem with the Luigi reflection: It had giant blonde fox ears. Luigi reached up and felt the ears and his reflection did the same. They were real all right. Luigi's arms hung down at his sides as he stared, dumbfounded at what happened. He watched in horror and fascination as a fat summer fly flew by and tried landing on his ear, only to be flicked away as Luigi's ear involuntarily moved itself back and forth quickly to fling it off. Luigi cringed at the weird sensation this invoked.

Typically the aforementioned super leaf gave the user a second pair of non-functioning ears, rather than transform and replace the real ones, but the weird ones that had formed on Luigi's head were anything but non- functioning. It appeared that Luigi's ears had moved themselves further back and higher up on his head. The newly transformed ears even improved his hearing. After staring at his reflection in the pond for a good five minutes in shock, another burning sensation wracked Luigi's body, this time on the back of his hand that wasn't gloved. After Luigi stopped cringing from the pain, he stared at the back of his ungloved hand, now covered in blonde fur. But before he could sufficiently panic about that, a bell rang from Toad town. Luigi stopped panicking for a second realizing he only had fifteen minutes to get to the ceremony. Luigi quickly shoved the glove back over his now furry hand, thanking God that the glove was completely covering the new fur and grabbed his hat. Finding that he could move and angle his ears with general ease after swiveling them around a few times, he quickly pressed his ears flat to his head and put on his hat, finding that he could still hear pretty well. And with that Luigi began his mad sprint to the castle, not pausing until he made it the rest of the way to the castle, finding he had only five minutes to spare.

Luigi arrived to the gate to be greeted by the yellow toad that was running greeting the guests, that had now long since went inside and taken their seats. "Luigi! How good it is to see you here! I thought you weren't coming!" said the toad cheerfully as he raised his hand (nub thingy) to shake Luigi's hand "And looking spiffy too, I see." As Luigi accepted the toads hand shake, he felt the burning sensation on the back of his regular hand. Knowing that he was growing fur there too, Luigi gulped a bit. "I like the new padded gloves you got, my man." said the toad politely, but then he noticed the sick look on Luigi's face "Are you alright?" the toad asked

"Yeah, sorry. I have a slight stomach ache, which is what made me late in the first place." lied Luigi

"I'm sorry to hear that," replied the toad sympathetically "You should probably go in and take your seat, as the ceremony is going to start in a few minutes… Oh and before I forget, we ran out of seats, so we set up some folding chairs in the back of the room! Sorry for the inconvenience." After saying a quick goodbye to the toad, Luigi made his way through the castle to the grand auditorium that sometimes held plays on other regular days. As Luigi made his way into the room, he could see why the castle toads had to set up some folding chairs; seas upon seas of people of different races and nationalities filled the rows of richly upholstered chairs that stretched 100 yards from wall to wall. Behind those seats were about five rows of folding chairs set up and only about one row occupied. As the lights started to dim, signifying the beginning of the ceremony, Luigi took a seat near the exit of the auditorium. "I see we have a late arrival here." said a sweet voice coming from a shadow that was sitting next to him. This made Luigi nearly jump out of his pants as he didn't see he was sitting next to anybody. "Oh silly," said the mysterious voice as they adjusted them self so their face was in the small amount of light. It was Daisy, the princess of Sarasaland ((sorry if I butchered the name))! "D-d-daisy," stuttered Luigi "I thought you had to speak tonight!"

"I do, but I still have a good 30-60 minutes before I'm needed onstage"

"Oh, that's nice. So how are you doing?"

"I'm enjoying time with my new boyfriend back home."

"WHAT?!" yelped Luigi, startling people within a five row radius of him.

Luigi then realized that Daisy was smiling and shaking her head slowly. "I was only joking." she said, as she giggled lightly and punched him in the arm. "A little defensive, maybe?" she continued to tease. Luigi felt his face grow red and with a note of panic he felt the burning sensation on his abdomen and as it went away, he didn't have to feel to know that a new patch of fur grew there. "Also, I like how you dyed your hair blonde, but maybe next time try to get it less the color of raw poultry. Also, are you going to dye your mustache too?" she asked without really expecting an answer as Luigi panicked and ran a gloved hand (as he can't really remove his gloves right now) through his hair that wasn't covered by his hat and found that his hair seemed to have the weird soft and smooth property that the blonde hair earlier seemed to have. He then concluded that the rest of his hair had turned blonde as he was making his mad dash to the castle.

The ceremony started with Toadsworth thanking everyone for being there and inviting Princess Peach to talk about how the kingdom was doing, however Luigi wasn't listening as he was too busy worrying about his predicament which seemed to be continually getting worse, as another burning sensation covered his lower back above the base of his tail (which was still wrapped around his torso) and began to spread up.

To say Luigi was scared would be an understatement. He didn't know how or why this was happening to him and quite frankly he didn't know what to do. "Pretty nice," Daisy broke the silence between them as Peach went off the stage to welcome Prince Peasley, who had recently taken the throne of the Bean Bean kingdom, to come and share how his kingdom was doing. "It's really nice to be with you Luigi." she said and before Luigi had time to respond, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Luigi flushed as red as Mario's shirt and before he could respond, a burning sensation that beat all others he had previously felt covered all of the areas that he had already grown fur. It was enough to make him double over, which grabbed the concern of Daisy. "Luigi!" she whispered "are you alright?" she asked to which Luigi responded with a somewhat labored "I'm fine, it'll pass in a minute. I just have a stomach ache." Daisy accepted this, but still looked at him in concern. Just as the pain felt that it was worse, it suddenly stopped, which caused Luigi to look up in surprise. But just as he felt relief, he had that feeling replaced with horror as he looked down to find that it appeared his fur had gotten longer and now stuck out visibly between the seams of his shirt where the two parts buttoned together. And without much warning, Luigi felt pain within his tail accompanied with the burning feeling that caused his tail to twitch a bit within his shirt. Luckily Daisy wasn't paying attention, so she didn't notice the weird twitching lump within Luigi's shirt. Suddenly Luigi's tail slipped it's way out of the back of his shirt and if it weren't for him sitting in a folding chair with a good sizable gap in the back, he would have been in a world of pain as he would have found himself sitting on his tail. Luigi looked back and saw his tail, which was now sticking out of the back of the folding chair and almost pressed against the wall, was now even bigger and longer, and a lot fluffier to where Luigi noticed for the first time that the rounded off tip was a white color, matching the fur that now covered his chest.

Luigi then knew he had to get out of the auditorium, for there was no telling what was to happen next and he certainly didn't want it to happen in front of his crush. Luckily for him, Luigi managed to make it out of his seat undetected, being extra careful to not brush the princess with his tail, but as he finally made it around the corner of the nearby doorway he heard a whisper shout "Luigi!" He knew he couldn't stay there so he tried to quietly make his way away from the doorway to the auditorium. Suddenly Daisy poked her head around the corner "Where are you goi-" Daisy got a good look at Luigi in all of his "glory". Luigi didn't wait another second and bolted off as fast as he could. "Luigi! Wait!" Daisy yelled after him, but Luigi continued to run down the castle halls, leaving Daisy behind in the distance in a matter of seconds. Luigi didn't know where he was running, but as he turned a corner he rammed full speed into another figure. Waluigi. Shoot. Luigi cowered on the ground as Waluigi got to his feet, looming over Luigi. "Listen fox freak, you don't disrespect me like you did in the forest and I decided to come and teach you a lesson." Without thinking, Luigi did something he never thought he was going to do and slapped Waluigi, who was stooped over him and breathing in Luigi's face. Luigi didn't know the gravity of the situation until he saw the red slashes on Waluigi's cheek that he made. Luigi looked down at his gloved hands and saw that his fingernail appeared to have turned into claws and ripped out the tip of the gloves. Luigi didn't have to be told to run as he bolted off down the hallway leaving Waluigi yelling "GET BACK HERE FOX BOY!" Luigi managed to make some distance between Waluigi and himself (it's a large castle) when he noticed he was running on all fours. This only caused Luigi to panic more and run faster until he found himself in a wing of the castle that seemed mostly empty at the time due to the ceremony. Luigi noticed the bathroom and got back up on his two feet and went into the men's room which was luckily deserted at the time. Luigi got a good look at himself in the giant mirror over the sinks and to his horror, he barely looked like himself anymore. His suspicions had been affirmed that the rest of his hair had turned blonde, the fur under his shirt seemed to have fluffed up and puff out his shirt, almost giving him the appearance of a stuffed point, and worst of all, his pride and joy, the only thing he ever passionately invested time in, his moustache, had turned a slightly darker shade of blonde. Luigi was a lost of what to do. He was tired of panicking as he felt he must have done it about seven times within the span of about an hour. Luigi was tired of the inexplicable pain and wondering why this was happening. It almost seemed like some kind of horrible demented dream that was being written and directed by some kind of weird fan boy that found joy in bringing him pain.

Luigi was suddenly alerted by a slight knocking sound on the door. "Luigi?" Daisy's sweet voice rang through the door. Although she wasn't speaking too loudly, Luigi's enhanced hearing heard it without a problem. "I don't know what's going on or what particularly I saw back there outside the auditorium, but I want to help you. I came across Waluigi in the halls and he had claw marks across his face and said you attacked him and he told me what direction you went. I'm your friend and I want you to know that I will help you and love you no matter what." 'wait, did she just say love?' Luigi thought to himself when he heard the sound of a dog whining. Luigi looked around confused, finding the bathroom empty, except for him. Luigi then realized that he was somehow making the sound. "Luigi? What's going on in there?" Daisy asked with a note of urgency in her voice. Luigi wanted to respond and tell her everything was all right, but he couldn't find the words. Instead he continued to make the whining noise. "Luigi, I don't care if this is the men's room, but if you don't say something, I will come in there myself and take you out!" Daisy said boldly. Luigi smiled to himself slightly 'that's my Daisy' he thought. He knew he had to say something, but as he opened his mouth to speak, his world erupted into an orchestra of fireworks and pain surrounded him like a cocoon and he let out one last loud shout of pain as his vocal chords seemed to give out and lapse into pain. It all seemed like a dream. "LUIGI!" he heard Daisy yell before his hearing gave out. His entire world was made of pain and everything around him went silent and it seemed as if he were watching a movie. Suddenly, everything went numb and Luigi could only see. His clothing and everything seemed to be getting bigger- no- he was shrinking and his clothing was starting to get way too big . He was tired and just before his clothing enveloped him into darkness, he saw one last sight of Daisy slamming open the door and looking at him. The shock and confusion and fear on her face. But it didn't matter. It all dissolved away as darkness overtook Luigi and he lapsed into unconsciousness.

 _Aaaaand that's chapter 3. It was actually intended to have more content in it, but when the chapter started getting to six pages in length, I had to cut things short for the next chapter. So next chapter some more things are going to go down. What's to become of poor Luigi? Who is the demented fan boy that he thought of? So many [easily answered] questions! One note is that this chapter was ultra long and chances are it'll have more mistakes in it than the previous ones. One thing I can think of saying is that the casino outfit comes from Super Mario 64 DS in the casino mini games where Luigi is the dealer. I mentioned what the ceremony is in the first author's note and once again, for all the content that was intended to be in this chapter, you need to wait for chapter four! Also, one thing I forgot to put in the first Author's note, is I won't be writing Mario and Luigi's voices in accents, because quite frankly I find it somewhat annoying. For how often you all will get new chapters, it'll probably be that you'll get new chapter (s) once a week. So until chapter 4, Norm out! Remember to always keep your shark repellant bat-spray handy!_


	4. Chapter 4: Fluffy Friend

_Norman is back! Even though it hasn't really been that long since I last wrote a chapter. Nothing much to say here except I suck at writing realistic dialogue and formatting such things. This chapter contains some stuff that was cut out of chapter three due to length (it was when I hit seven pages in Microsoft Works Word Processor_ _that I realized I had a problem). I once again really appreciate your reviews and opinions, so please continue reviewing because I really do value and read each and every review. To me it's like "I am random person who just showed up on the internet literally two weeks ago and others are already taking interest in my work!" and it's really helpful to have others politely point out what I'm doing wrong. Thank you to the reviewers! Also in every finishing Author's note I put some weird quote. That's because I see other authors that regularly put quotes at the end of their works and typically it's the same thing every time, but I don't have a regular to use quote, so I just make up weird ones. So let's see how many weird quotes I can make up before I either find a good encouraging quote to others and/or give up. One more thing, to specify, Luigi is a kitsune, but since that's pretty much a mythical creature everyone is going to refer to him as a fox until it's specified what he is. So without further ado (why do I keep saying this?), here's chapter 4!_

Chapter 4: Fluffy Friend

"YOU WHAT?!" Bowser roared as Kamek cowered beneath a nearby table. "I may have accidentally… 'poisoned' Luigi's water instead of Mario's" Kamek barely squeaked out before having to dodge to the side to avoid a spout of flame from Bowser. "P-p-please master, please calm down" Kamek stuttered out between his chattering beak. Kamek needed to think fast. There was no way Bowser was going to calm down on his own without some words of some type of revengy reassurance. 'Think, Kamek! Think!' Kamek thought to himself as he continued to barely dodge the flaming doom that Bowser kept hurling at him, doing quite well in spite of wearing his usual magikoopa garb that almost looked suspiciously like a dress. Just then Kamek got it! He was just going to tell Bowser what he was originally going to!

 _ **Kamek was flying back from the Mario household, stolen pasta recipe fluttering in the wind when it hit Kamek. Even if he could get a sample of Luigi's blood, he wouldn't have the right supplies to create another proper serum, considering he had used up almost all the budding super leafs. Kamek sighed in frustration. Bowser wouldn't be happy about this.**_

"W-w-well sir, I can get a sample of Luigi's blood and try to improve the formula so I can use a better one on Mario" Kamek shouted while still dodging all the flames ((but probably not as many as I will get while writing this! Sorry, I couldn't resist)) Bowser paused for a second while thinking this through. "Hmmph," Bowser growled "Well, I am going to crash the party tonight, so you need to come along and get the blood sample."

"Yes sir!" Kamek said as he grabbed a gun-looking thing with a long needle from the nearby table, that somehow survived Bowser's fit of rage "This will make it extra painful!"

Bowser's scowl turned into a grin "Just what I'd expect from you, Kamek."

And with that, both of them started preparing for the night's coming raid.

Daisy didn't know what to do. Luigi had been acting sort of off all night since he first came in, from the weird outfit change to the weird sight that she saw when trying to convince him not to leave. First off, Luigi never took off his classic green shirt and green overalls unless he was forced to or had to wash them. Most weirdly of all, when she heard him get up and she called out for him and tried to get him to come back, she went into the hall and saw the weirdest sight of all. It was almost as if Luigi was more animal than human, with his hair blonde as she had earlier noted as weird, matching the color of an inexplicable giant fluffy tail sticking out from his back. The look of fear in his eyes didn't even seem like him. There was no denying for her that he was a bit of a scaredy cat, but the amount of fear that she could see reflecting in the sapphire pools of blue that were his eyes was not even close to normal and didn't quite look human. As soon as he saw Daisy, he didn't hesitate and took off running like a speeding bullet, his tail bouncing behind him as he ran, leaving Daisy yelling for him to come back. In the process of the indoor track team practice, he also lost his hat, revealing two giant fox ears peaking out of the hair on the top of his head, seemingly replacing his regular ears. Daisy knew something was up and out of duty for her possible future boyfriend she picked up his hat and she set off, trying to trail where he went. It wasn't too hard as it seemed he left small tufts of blonde fur (as Daisy deduced it to be) as he ran creating a fairly reasonable path for her to follow ' _well it is summer after all_ ,' Daisy thought to herself as she marched on, trying to find her friend ' _and that's not a thought I ever fathomed crossing my mind in regards to Luigi_ ' Daisy kept walking, picking up the small tufts as she went as although she didn't know exactly what was happening, but she could guess that Luigi didn't want attention for whatever was going on. Suddenly Daisy heard a yell and she picked up the pace to see where it was coming from.

It was then that she came across Waluigi in the hallway, covering his cheek from view and sneezing. Daisy knew that this guy was a total whack job who was not one to entertain the thought of or mess with, but she needed information and fast. "Where's Luigi?" asked Daisy to him with the perfect amount of venom in her voice to show him who was in charge and that she meant business. Waluigi stared her straight in the eye, with a small bit of fear and shock in his own. "He attacked me," Waluigi said with a now crazy look in his eyes as he removed his hand from his cheek to show his glove was stained with blood and that he had what appeared to be five claw marks etched deep across his cheek, still fresh and bleeding. Daisy gasped in surprise, as this was even more unlike Luigi then everything else that had happened up to this point. Waluigi started sneezing again, blowing a slight amount of blood onto Daisy's face, and raised a shaky finger and pointed towards a now nearly empty wing in the castle. "He went that way. Stop that monster before he does anything else. Sorry for the sneezing, I'm allergic to animal fur." Daisy looked down at the tufts of fur in her hand along with the hat that belonged to Luigi. Was this all really him? Daisy left behind Waluigi who started muttering gibberish about fox people. Daisy got more and more concerned with each step as she followed the trail of shed fur. What was going on? Daisy finally hit the end of the trail of fur, which lead to the wing's bathroom. Daisy picked up the last tuft of fur on the ground and dumped the small pile of fur she had gathered into the nearby trash. "Luigi," she called out gently. No reply, but the slight sound of heavy breathing alerted her of his presence inside. Daisy tried her best to comfort him and to get him to come out, but to no avail. Instead all she got was the sound of a dog whining. ' _Is there a dog in there or is Luigi making that noise somehow?_ ' Daisy thought to herself as she continued to try to coax him out. Suddenly the whining cut out and was instead replaced by a soul splitting scream that had to of come from Luigi. Daisy didn't care that this was a men's room and slammed open the door to rush to Luigi's aid. Daisy was hit with a sight that she couldn't make sense of. With the sheer weirdness of past events of the night, it would have made sense that nothing would surprise Daisy anymore, but no. Nothing could really prepare for the sight Daisy was feasting her eye's upon. Daisy went into the men's room to find what looked like Luigi growing fur all over and getting smaller. Daisy stared on as he got smaller to where his clothing covered him and seemingly swallowed him up whole, leaving only a small lump in the center of his shirt. Daisy froze and continued to look at this sight for at least a solid two minutes, brain not fully processing what had happened. Daisy continued to stare until the lump started to stir.

Luigi was enclosed in a lovely dark cocoon of warmth when he regained consciousness. First he was able to hear, hearing only what sounded like stiff and scared breathing. Next he was able to smell, smelling what seemed like the weird fruity soap that is in the bathroom of public restaurants, but it was way stronger than before. Suddenly another scent hit his nose that made Luigi sigh in contentment. It was the scent of the perfume Daisy wore that was made of some sort of desert flower, but unfortunately when Daisy put it on, the scent seemingly vanished and Luigi could only smell it when she was holding the bottle. ' _Wait, where am I?'_ Luigi thought to himself as he began to squirm to only find he was held fast by some sort of fabric that surrounded him, with no light to offer any hints. And to top that off, his body felt extremely weird and didn't feel right at all. Luigi tried to squirm harder and finally found what seemed like a fabric tunnel. Luigi wiggled his way into it and started squirming to move forward as the tunnel seemingly brightened up to reveal that the tunnel was indeed made of fabric with each individual thread clearly visible. ' _Where am I?_ ' thought Luigi to himself for the second time. Suddenly Luigi hit the end of the tunnel and poked his head out. Everything looked oddly giant as Luigi looked around and realized he was in the men's bathroom at the castle. Then his eyes rested on Daisy who was staring at him in shock, who also seemed oddly giant. "Luigi, what's going on?" she asked, her voice very noticeably shaking as she spoke indicating she was shocked about something. This was very out of character for Daisy, as she was typically a tough tom boy, rarely shaken by anything under a magnitude seven earthquake. _"What are you talking about, Daisy?"_ Luigi tried to say, but was only greeted by a look of confusion on Daisy's face. Luigi repeated what he said, saying it slowly, but all he heard were some barks and yips… was that a "moo" in there? Daisy's shocked face turned to one of panic "Great," she said with strain in her voice "and now you can't even talk." Luigi was still confused, but before he could do anything, Daisy walked over to him and freed him of the cloth prison that everything other than his head was stuck in. When Daisy lifted him up, he got a good view that the so called "prison" was in fact his shirt sleeve. Luigi didn't know how to properly panic, but then Daisy set him down on the bathroom counter and all Luigi could see reflecting in the mirror other than Daisy was a weird blonde fox kit. Luigi tilted his head and the reflection did the same thing. He tried standing up, but lost his balance rather quickly and fell sideways onto the countertop and bumped his muzzle pretty good on the sink. Wait, his muzzle? The fox thing was him! Due to the fact of no normal person ever having to undergo such circumstances, Luigi didn't know what to do, so he did the only logical thing that just about anybody else who was in his shoes would do: He had a good old fashioned mental breakdown full of twitching wildly and barking and yipping and whimpering uncontrollably. That ought to be sufficient panicking. Daisy watched on silently as the fox kit was having his mental breakdown, knowing full well that he could be no one other than Luigi.

Suddenly Luigi stopped his convulsions, as his mind couldn't take it anymore and he promptly passed out, legs twitching every once in awhile. When Luigi came to in a couple minutes he first felt the sensation of a giant hand petting his back and soothingly saying "It's alright Luigi." repeatedly as they kept stroking him. Luigi's memory of the night's events up to the mental breakdown came flowing back into Luigi's mind, which caused him to jump a little, startling the hand that was petting him. Luigi opened his eye's and saw that he was surrounded by orange silk rivers, but then realized he was sitting on Daisy's lap and this was her dress he was seeing. As Luigi felt heat spread over his face, which he now noticed the long and somewhat narrow muzzle that was in his line of vision, Daisy picked him up in both hands and held him so they were face to face. "Are you alright?" she asked, enunciating very carefully and clearly. _"Yes-"_ Luigi began to say, somewhat forgetting the fox situation at the moment, but then realizing that all Daisy could hear was dog noises. Luigi caught this and then started nodding his head up and down, so to indicate yes in the best way he could. Luigi frowned a bit (or the fox equivalent of this), not knowing whether he should feel weird that his possible future girlfriend/love interest was holding him while he was a defenseless baby animal who couldn't talk. Luigi decided to stop thinking about this before he triggered another mental breakdown. "Do you know why or how this happened?" she asked next. Luigi thought it through before answering. He did nothing out of the ordinary that could really trigger this or any type of result anywhere close to this. Luigi shook his head. Daisy sighed and clutched him to her chest, stroking him absentmindedly. "What am I going to do with you?" she murmured, but was cut short by the ringing of a tiny quaint bell that was in Daisy's brooch, which could be removed and doubled as a clock. "Oh no!" Daisy cried, almost dropping Luigi "I need to be backstage for my speech in five minutes!" Daisy paused for a minute and then looked down at Luigi, who was looking back up at her curiously, head tilted slightly to the side. She sighed, as she couldn't take him with her. "Luigi, stay here," Daisy started as she gently laid Luigi on the floor beneath the sinks "Unfortunately this is very important and can't be missed, but I will come back for you as soon as I'm done convincing everyone that my kingdom is prosperous." Daisy then eyed all of Luigi's clothing on the floor and quickly picked it up, including his hat, which Luigi noticed that she had and deduced that he must have lost it while he was running, and put it in one of the bathroom stalls on top of a toilet that she closed the toilet lid on. Daisy then locked the stall from the inside and crawled out from underneath, then gave Luigi one last look and left with a promise of coming back for him soon. Luigi sat on the bathroom floor on his back for a few minutes, not sure what to do. Luigi then raised one of his paws into the air to get a better look at it. It was tiny and had downy blonde fur covering it. Luigi suddenly realized that he had been naked this entire time and that Daisy had seen it all and started shuddering in a mix of wanting to crawl up the nearest hole and dying and embarrassment.

Suddenly the sound of the door opening caught Luigi's attention and he fell dead still knowing full well it wasn't Daisy. Luigi caught a sight of blue and red and realized that it was Mario who must have finished his speech. "Man, isn't it nice to get away from the crowds sometimes?" Mario asked himself as he looked at himself in the mirror. Luigi only shrank back, not wanting his brother to see him in this state and involuntarily let out a loud whimper. Mario froze in his tracks. "Anybody there?" he called out, as Luigi tried to squirm his way further out of sight, but only making more noise as he continued whimpering. Mario squatted down as he realized the sound was coming from under the sink. Luigi started shaking violently as he realized he was about to be discovered. Mario spotted Luigi, not realizing it was him, and only saw a very pathetic looking baby fox shaking on the floor. Mario's face blossomed into a smile "Hey little guy," he said gently as he reached out a hand to grab Luigi. This only caused Luigi to tense up more. Mario noticed this as he started wrapping his hand around Luigi, whose body (not including his tail) could easily fit in his hand, being slightly bigger than his palm. As Luigi felt his brother's now giant hand wrapping around him, he let out a small bark, which caused Mario to chuckle. "Feisty little one, aren't you? It's alright, I won't hurt you," Mario cooed as he held Luigi close to him, cuddling him warmly to which Luigi couldn't help but snuggle closer to Mario, smelling his cologne and taking it in and subconsciously remembering it as his brother's scent. "Now who would abandon such a sweet widdle thing like you?" Mario asked in baby talk as he lifted Luigi to his face and started snuggling Luigi more. Luigi knew Mario loved baby animals, but didn't know he loved them this much! "Now I think it's pretty obvious that you don't have an owner, so how would you like to come home with me?" Mario asked with a voice like silk as he started scratching Luigi's belly in the sweet spot, causing Luigi to involuntarily move one of his hind legs back and forth, which only caused Mario to giggle. "You're going to need a name, aren't you?" Mario said, still cooing, as he lifted Luigi up to eyelevel "Let's see are you a boy or girl… yep, definitely a boy." Luigi knew his face would have been as red as Mario's shirt if he wasn't covered in fur. "So how about I call you… Lucas?"

' _Well, at least that isn't too far from my real name'_ Luigi thought to himself as Mario cradled him in his arm's again, holding Luigi like a baby. "Lucas it is! I can't wait to show you to the princess, Lucas!" said Mario as he started to walk out of the bathroom with Luigi cradled in one arm. ' _Oh boy_ ' Luigi thought to himself as Mario, the overly affectionate baby animal lover who typically didn't show much emotion, walked off holding him ' _Isn't tonight going to be fun.'_ Little did Luigi know that the night hadn't quite exhausted it's store of surprises for him yet.

 _And that's chapter 4! Man that took forever to write. As a side note, the Lucas name isn't going to stick too long, so I'm going to continue to refer to Luigi as Luigi. Lucas is a name I came up with because I like it and also my Lucas amiibo was staring me down from my bookshelf and he'd probably go send me to join Hinawa and Claus if I didn't use his name. Another thing is the indoor track team. That came to be because my geometry teacher told my class about when he used to teach at a school where kids would skip class all the time and the school was laid out in a giant circle. There would be truancy guards and whenever they saw a kid out of class, they'd chase them and the kid would never get caught because the school was in a giant circle and they just had to turn a corner and hide in a room and they couldn't be found. So that's the inside joke. Also, I keep forgetting to put the disclaimer that I don't own any Nintendo characters, but I think it's pretty obvious that I don't own anything but the story idea. Also not to mention this site is called fan fiction. Net. FANfiction. So what awaits Luigi next? Will I ever stop asking annoying questions? How many times did I use the word or some variation of the word "thing"? [28] These are all some legitimate questions. So until next chapter, Norm out. And don't forget to have a good old fashioned mental breakdown once in awhile!_


	5. Chapter 5: Awkward Revelations

_Hey, Norm here! I'm back! It's good to be back and writing again. I got a very helpful review that pointed out I was using "it's" and "its" wrong, so I'll try my hardest to be more wary and fix that. And as per usual, I will be trying to fix the paragraph lengths, which sorry for not getting completely right in the last chapters. Please continue to criticize my work in the reviews, but please no flames. I need your input to make this better, so please don't hesitate to review and give me advice. I really have nothing else to say. So without further ado, here's chapter 5!_

Chapter 5: Awkward Revelations

Luigi frowned as he didn't know how much more of this he could take. Everything that had happened to him that night seemed unreal and like a dream. Not just any dream, though, but like a nightmare. A really embarrassing one. It all started off with him mysteriously growing a tail, then moved to him growing some fur on various parts of his body, then his ears changed into fox ears, then, to top it all off, the transformation seemingly completed itself, however in the world it came about, and he turned into what seemed like a baby fox, not to mention he couldn't talk. It was all mysterious and Luigi didn't know what to do, as any other person would never experience this.

Luigi sat in his older brother's arms as he continued to coo at Luigi, oblivious to the fact that it was him. As Luigi continued to get adored by his brother, he couldn't help but wonder what his future was going to be like, assuming this wasn't some weird very lifelike dream. What would he do? What would his brother do? Mario didn't know it was him and if he did find out, what would happen? If he didn't find out, as only two people knew and there is no normal way to start a conversation of saying "Your brother turned into that fox kit you're holding" (not even considering if it was possible to make it believable), how would things turn out? It would probably appear that Luigi went missing while Luigi is actually sitting at home being adored and unable to say anything to his brother, who would probably be heartbroken, while he would have to adjust to a new life completely unfamiliar to him. Luigi watched on as Mario ungloved a hand, while expertly still holding Luigi in one arm, and started stroking him to find Luigi was probably the softest little thing alive, which only caused Mario to adore him even more (if that's even possible).

As Mario and Luigi drew closer to the auditorium where the ceremony was taking place, a slight sudden rattling noise drew Luigi's attention to a closet used to store cleaning supplies. Luigi looked up to Mario's face and saw that he must not have noticed it because his face showed no indicators that he did. Luigi realized it must be his enhanced hearing that allowed him to hear what sounded to him like someone tied up and struggling inside the closet. Luigi knew he couldn't stay silent and let out a bark, which aroused instantly gained Mario's full attention.

"What is it Lucas? What is it boy?" asked Mario as Luigi started to struggle to get himself free to the floor so he could try to point out the person in the closet.

Mario understood that Luigi wanted down, so he put him gently on the floor. Luigi tried to take a step, wobbling unstably on his four paws, and… fell flat on his face on the marble floor. He couldn't walk yet. Luigi felt hot with embarrassment, but wouldn't let that stop him as he continued to lay on his side and attempted to squirm and wiggle his way towards the closet, which amazingly worked, though Mario looked on and probably thought Luigi had developmental issues. Luigi finally managed to get to the door and started pawing it (still laying on his side) and barking. Mario didn't know what was going on, but realized that Lucas (Luigi) must have sensed something off about the closet and wanted him to investigate.

Mario scooped up Luigi and opened the closet door to have his jaw drop to the floor. Inside was Prince Peasley (probably King Peasley now) all tied up and gagged. Without skipping a beat, Mario tucked Luigi in the front of his overalls to where his head still stuck up and he could see, and started untying Peasley in record time. Peasley did his trademark hair whoosh before speaking.

"Thank you for freeing me from my little predicament. I'm afraid I got a little tied up with the ceremony backstage after speaking that I didn't notice someone coming up behind me with the rope and gag," said Peasley in his usual regal tone "Oh! Who's this little fellow?" asked Peasley as he noticed Luigi, who was very cutely sitting in Mario's overalls, head peaking out of the top.

"His name is Lucas. I found him abandoned in the bathroom and decided to take him home with me." replied Mario, looking down affectionately at Luigi, who stared back up, wishing for the millionth time that he could say something other than barks and yips nobody could understand.

"Well he is certainly very cute," complimented Peasley

"He actually alerted me that you were in here. He must have heard you struggling."

"Is that so? Well thank you Lucas!" said Peasley as he leaned in to pet Luigi to also find that Luigi was the softest thing he ever felt "Well aren't you quite the cuddly thing. No wonder Mario wanted you!" cooed Peasley as he leaned closer.

' _Dear God, not another one!'_ thought Luigi as Peasley pet him affectionately.

"Hmm," mused Peasley as he suddenly stopped petting Luigi and stared him straight in the eyes "Lucas has the same unique color of blue eyes that Luigi has."

Mario looked down at Luigi to discover Peasley was correct. "Well I'll be darned, He does! I thought Luigi was the only one to have that!" Luigi stared back up at Mario, not sure what to think, but realized he must have retained his eye color. Luigi's eyes were a deep sparkling blue, equal to that of the most valuable sapphire, which Mario shared that color with him, but what made his eyes different was a small genetic mutation that he was born with that caused there to be a small ring of bright silver color around his pupils. It was also frightening, because whenever he was feeling extreme negative emotion, other than his typical mental breakdowns, his eyes completely took on the silver color.

Suddenly Mario's head shot up to look at Peasley. "Wait! You said you were put in here. Did you see who did it?"

"No"

"Then what about the princesses?"

Peasley realized that Mario was right and within a blink of the eye, both men went running towards the back stage of the auditorium so fast that it would make a blue hedgehog jealous. When both men arrived back stage out of breath (the hedgehog is probably sticking it's tongue out at them now), Daisy was still speaking. Luigi could notice that she seemed somewhat out of it with her voice wobbling a bit, probably thinking of him, but nobody else seemed to notice. A strange sight caught Luigi's eye. He saw Peasley talking to Peach… but Peasley was right next to him. Luigi quickly looked back and forth between the Peasleys, seeing the shocked expression on the presumably correct Peasley, who was standing next to him, jaw slightly agape.

Luigi didn't know what he was doing, maybe a matter of instinct or stupidity, but he as quick as a flash freed himself from his brother's overalls and used his brother's shoulders as a springboard and launched himself towards the phony. Luigi apparently didn't lose his jumping skills because he cleared the long distance between Mario and the imposter with no problems at all. Luigi reached the imposter and sunk his teeth, which had sharpened with the transformation, into the imposter's shoulder. The imposter let out a howl of pain, very un-Peasley-like and fell to the floor, Luigi still latched on and growling. The body beneath Luigi began to shift and change to reveal… Kamek! Kamek shot Luigi a glance so full of venom that Luigi couldn't help but to let go and whimper. Kamek grabbed and picked up Luigi by the tail, which hurt like the dickens, and stared Luigi in the eye. "You stupid mutt," Kamek snarled as he flung Luigi against a nearby wall "how does it feel now?"

Just as Kamek finished his sentence, rocks fell from the ceiling with a large crash, which didn't go unnoticed to the audience watching Daisy speak, who quick as a flash ran away screaming. Just standard protocol for the citizens. The dust backstage began to clear revealing Bowser hovering in his clown car.

"Hello Kamek, I got tired of waiting and decided to come in. Did you capture Peach or Greenstache?"

Now Peach saw everything from Luigi biting Kamek, to him losing his illusion of being Peasley, and was currently standing in the corner nearby, unsure of what to do. Luigi, however, was sitting at the wall he was flung against, head throbbing, and trying to shake off his dizziness. Kamek realized he had forgotten all about Luigi! Kamek turned to look at miserable little Luigi with a menacing grin.

"I had forgotten all about Luigi, but luckily he's right here for the taking." hissed Kamek as he advanced towards Luigi, still incapacitated, and picked him up by his tail again and started walking back towards Bowser.

"What are you doing with that stupid mutt?" asked Bowser, as Mario, who had watched this entire weird exchange in silence also asked "What? That's Lucas. Luigi's probably at home cleaning."

Kamek surprisingly heard Mario over Bowser and turned to him, holding Luigi over his head by the tail, who was now shaking with fear due to knowing how vulnerable he was at that point. Kamek stared at Mario with a smirk before beginning "Wow, you can't even recognize your own twin brother. Behold! The power of my magic! I turned your worthless brother into the poor helpless mangy baby that he is!" he said as he moved his hand holding Luigi in a tiny circle, slightly swinging the poor guy. Luigi looked up and gave Mario a pathetic look to which Mario stared back blankly, unsure of what to think. Kamek shifted Luigi so he wasn't holding him by the tail anymore, but was now clutching him tightly to his chest. Although Luigi was glad to not be dangling by his tail anymore, he didn't like the way Kamek was holding him and sensed the bad intentions.

As Kamek clutched Luigi tightly, he fished around one of the pockets of his robe, which were pretty big, and pulled out a giant gun-like thingy with a long giant needle on the end. Without as a much of a moment of hesitation, Kamek plunged the needle into Luigi's posterior and drew a lot of blood, which caused both Mario and Luigi to flinch at the same time; Mario from hatred of needles, Luigi from the extreme pain. Although the pain wasn't as great as the transformation pain, it was enough to make Luigi reel a bit. As Luigi's vision began to blur from a bit too much blood getting taken, he noticed a shape moving out of the corner of his eye. As Luigi turned his head he noticed it was Bowser making off with Peach as everyone was distracted with Kamek!

Suddenly time seemed to slow for Luigi and everything seemed to freeze, everything only moving ever so slightly. Luigi didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew this was his time to act. Luigi freed himself from Kamek's grip and bit down hard on the old magikoopa's shoulder (man could he bite hard for how small he was) and then used him as a springboard to launch towards Bowser, who was a short distance away. Unfortunately, the needle did more damage than Luigi expected and must have struck a nerve or something and his back legs could barely move, which equated to a very mediocre jump, but Luigi somehow made the distance and looking behind him, he found his tail wagging which was giving him the extra distance he needed, much like a super leaf did. When Luigi reach Bowser, time still going slow, he bit down hard on the Koopa's neck, causing him to drop Peach in pain as well as fling Luigi off him and run back to the nearby clown car. Kamek followed en suite ((I think that's how you spell it)) in the retreat, still holding the vial of Luigi's blood victoriously. In no time flat, both had disappeared, leaving Luigi as time began to speed up again, to collapse in pain from the blood loss.

Luigi didn't dream, but instead felt like he was floating through syrup endlessly. He didn't know when, but he started feeling pins and needles going through his body as he started to come to. Suddenly he was aware of people surrounding him, not seeing them, but just sensing them. He was vaguely aware of muffled voices around him.

"It's not him! Although he has the same eye color and shows a few cowardly traits, that doesn't mean it's him. Luigi is probably just sitting at home."

"I know what I saw, Mario. It's him. And seriously, how many people have you ever seen with that eye color?"

"None of this makes any sense, though. Either way, it's not him. I won't believe it" the voice sounded a bit more hoarse, like it had been crying

"Now calm down," a new voice said "Even if it is him, why is it so hard to admit it? Let's just calm down a bit."

Suddenly, Luigi got his enhanced sense of smell back as well as some feeling, bringing pain in his hind legs along with it. Luigi felt that he was being held and smelled his brother's cologne. Mario must be holding him, Luigi deduced subconsciously. Luigi couldn't help but snuggle himself in further into the warm and safe arms.

"Wait! I think he's coming to. Luiiiiigi. Wake up!" said Daisy as Luigi began to move more before finally poking his head up. Luigi felt his head throbbing from being thrown at the wall earlier as he got a view of Peasley, Daisy, and Peach staring at him expectantly. "Luigi, is it you?" Daisy asked. Luigi couldn't nod or shake his head without risk of throwing up on his brother who was holding him, so Luigi gave Daisy a blank stare, unsure how to prove who he was without talking or shaking his head.

"See? I told you it isn't him! Luigi is just sitting at home!" stated Mario victoriously.

Luigi knew this was his chance to prove to the small audience of royalty and his brother who he was. But how? Suddenly Luigi got it. Luigi let out a noise, carefully using his tongue and deepening his voice from his now higher pitched one that came along with the transformation. Luigi's noise sounded like a garbled version of his trademark "okiedokie", but there was no denying of what he was trying to say, not even Mario could deny that this was Luigi at that point. After all, Luigi sounded like what you'd expect someone who got turned into an animal and was trying carefully to talk to sound like.

"B-b-but how?" Mario asked with a stutter in his voice that was never present unless Mario didn't know what to think, which was just about never.

"I don't know myself and neither does he. I think it would be best if you took him home for the night. His clothing that he lost when he transformed is inside the first stall of the bathroom in the wing that you found him in. I locked the stall myself from the inside, so just crawl under the door. Maybe if we're lucky the transformation will wear off in the morning and he'll be him again." Daisy stated somewhat flatly, clearly tired from the long confusing and eventful night.

Mario, who was holding Luigi gently, started away from the auditorium, gently rubbing Luigi on the head as he went. "Oh Luigi, what am I going to do with you?" Mario asked himself, clearly not expecting an answer. _"I don't know, big bro. I don't know. But what I do know is that this isn't going to wear off in the morning."_ whimpered Luigi softly as he started to lapse into sleep again, digging his muzzle into his tail for warmth as he curled up for sleep. This caused Mario to softly chuckle "Well, either way, you're absolutely adorable little bro. Even with how weird this is, I'll love you no matter what." And with that the two brothers walked on.

 _Annnd….cut. That's chapter five, people. I'm really hoping that I didn't accidentally make some plot holes along the way that I didn't catch and fix. So what are you all thinking of it so far? And once again, please feel free to criticize my work so I can make it better. The funny thing is even as an author, I recognize that this story is very weird. Yet the weirdness and not being afraid to stare it in the face is what makes writing this so fun for me. It's kind of ironic that my name is Norman, which is one letter away from normal and yet I'm the exact opposite of normal. I tried harder to fix the paragraphs and I hope I got them right this time. Also there isn't any incest or yaoi of any kind going on here at all. The only pairing in this story is really LuigixDaisy, but that isn't really going to be a big thing in this story, so technically that doesn't count. Just a heads up, I have some trash going on in my life right now that may prevent me from releasing new chapters on any sort of regular basis, so if there is a long wait time for the chapter, I'd like to apologize in advance and I will try to release new chapters as soon as possible. I really have no idea how many chapters this story will be, but I have an idea of where I want to end it, so it's a matter of filling in events between here and the end. My goal is to keep writing until I hit writer's block, in which case I'll tell you at the end of the chapter that I hit it so there's no confusion. Sorry for the extremely long author's note. Norm out. Until next time, don't forget to embrace the weird (and also the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell)! Your life will be so much more fun if you embrace it!_


	6. Chapter 6: Adjusting

_And I'm back again! Norman here bringing you chapter six of Kitsune Curse. Things are starting to heat up as Mario found out. I really don't have much to say, except continue to criticize my work and review so I can improve it. As far as I've been told, I've about fixed the paragraphs, so that's good, and there's a request for more dialogue. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I absolutely suck at writing believable dialogue, but I'll keep trying. I'll do it for you guys! I'd also like to give a special thanks to Pikminfan for helping me with future plot points, so I don't run into writers block later! I'd also like to thank the guest reviewer who is continually pointing out that I'm using "it's" wrong. I will keep trying to catch all those and fix them. Also, if an interest is expressed then I will tell you all the original story line of this fanfic before it got changed to this, and believe it or not, the original story was very different from this, but was dropped due to there not being enough story material. So let me know if you want to see that. I really have nothing else to say, except thank you for the reviews. So without further ado, chapter six_

Chapter 6: Adjusting

The warm summer night air blew through Luigi's fur as Mario walked on, holding him as he slept. It was a clear night with thousands of stars sparkling on like diamonds and fireflies sweeping through the sky like tiny little suns. Mario, however, didn't notice any of this. He was deep in thought as he held his brother, now a fox kit. It all seemed sudden and unexpected, but the more he thought about it, the more it all made sense in a way. He found a fox kit that someone happened to abandon in the castle bathroom; suspicious really. Why didn't he think of it? Not to mention the fact that the fox did in fact resemble his brother a little, down to the silver ring eyes and tiny tufts of fluff on top of the thing's head that resembled the cowlicks that both he and Luigi sported. So why was he having a hard time accepting this? This was really a question that even Mario himself couldn't answer.

After picking up Luigi in the auditorium, Mario had set off to grab Luigi's clothing that were in the bathroom. As Luigi fell asleep and seemed to make little whimpering noises in response to whenever Mario addressed him, Mario couldn't deny the fact that Luigi was freaking adorable as he drifted off in his arms, muzzle tucked into tail presumably for warmth. Even as shaken as Mario felt, he couldn't help but crack a small smile at the cooing noises Luigi made in his sleep. Finally he arrived at the bathroom that he found Luigi in and gently set the sleeping fox on the bathroom countertop, which was cold and caused poor Luigi to stir a little. Mario crawled under the first stall, as Daisy instructed him to do, and found Luigi's clothing on top of the toilet as she had promised. Mario picked up his brother's clothing and couldn't help but be puzzled as to why they weren't his regular clothing. Suddenly Mario noticed some things. The rips on the tips of the gloves, the small rips in the fabric along the back of his shirt and vest, and the tufts of blonde fur scattered across and sticking to the clothing.

Mario only needed to take one look to know the transformation wasn't pleasant and probably hurt like all get out. Mario exited the stall and looked at the sleeping fox sitting on the counter, cooing gently as he slept. Mario smiled a bit and gently picked the fox up, bundling him up with his clothing for warmth and comfort. Mario then left the castle behind and headed towards home, brother in arms, and troubled in thoughts.

The Mario brothers finally arrived home to their surprisingly small abode and went inside. As Luigi began to stir and wake up, a sudden call burst the rest of his sleeping: "Luigi!" Mario called out with desperation in his voice and what appeared to be tears in his eyes. When there was no response Mario looked sadly down at Luigi who was now staring back up at him. "I just wanted to be sure, little bro. I'm sorry." A single tear fell on Luigi and soaked through his fur. Mario stood there for a few more seconds in silence before he walked up the stairs to his room and set Luigi on the bed. Luigi managed to squirm free of his clothes and got an impressive view of his brother's room from his impossibly small viewpoint.

Luigi couldn't help but try to get up and attempt to walk and explore, but was stopped abruptly by a pain in his hind legs. That needle sure jacked them up good. Mario noticed and quickly sat down on the bed and picked up Luigi and started carefully moving his hind legs back and forth to loosen them up. Luigi was somewhat surprised at his brother's gentleness as he never really seemed the type to be gentle, but instead Mario seemed more like the person who would bash your head in if you stepped out of line. Finally Mario finished and Luigi's hind legs felt much better and looser. As Mario started setting Luigi on the floor, Luigi couldn't help but give Mario's hand a lick of appreciation, which was luckily interpreted as a thank you rather than just plain weird.

"You're welcome little bro. Although I was never a veterinarian, in the time I was a doctor I did learn some basic things about anatomy." Mario said with a smile.

" _Maybe I should try to be a doctor too!_ " Luigi yipped before remembering he couldn't talk and Mario was only laughing at the squeaking noises coming from the fox " _But I'd need to be able to grab things and have hands."_ whimpered Luigi sadly as he looked down at his paws that were useless and couldn't do anything except walk.

"Well, you sure are trying to explain something." Mario laughed out as he sat on his bed and watched Luigi somewhat fascinated as he tried to get up on his paws and walk. Luigi managed to get to his paws, which were wobbling pretty badly under his weight. He tried taking another step and… fell flat on his face again. But this time there wasn't anyone stuck in a closet to save, so Luigi got back up again, determined, and… got the same result. Mario couldn't help but laugh out loud at the squeaking noises Luigi made every time he face planted, but started to get worried when after about the 450th try Luigi still couldn't take a step. Mario continued watching, now worried, when he noticed Luigi's somewhat oversized tail that seemed out of proportion with the rest of him (but not by much) dragging on the ground uselessly. Mario had an idea.

"Little bro, can you move that tail of yours?" asked Mario, feeling somewhat weird because that's not something he expected to say in his lifetime. Luigi looked at him and swished his tail around, indicating that he could in fact move it.

"Okay, just checking. I think I read somewhere that animals like cats or something use their tails to balance. Why don't you try using your tail for balance?"

" _Okay Mr. Videogame-tutorial, I'll try._ " muttered Luigi, not confident it would work for him. Luigi lifted his tail up into the air, still feeling weird about moving it and having an extra limb. Luigi got to his paws once again, but feeling a bit more stable this time. Luigi tried taking a step and… managed to stay upright! Luigi stood, muzzle high in the air, swishing his tail in pride when he fell over again due to setting off his balance with his tail. Mario let out a loud guffaw, which resulted in a death glare from Luigi that looked so unnatural on the cute fox's face and was almost legitimately scary.

"Whoa buddy, save that for the go-kart track." said Mario, still laughing.

Luigi snorted in contempt and continued to practice walking and after a few more tries got fairly fluent. "Good!" said Mario as he started to get up "I need to make myself some dinner, so I need to go downstairs. Try not to hurt yourself!" Mario walked out of the room, carrying Luigi's clothing and leaving the door open so Luigi could explore a bit if he wanted. Luigi saw the giant full body mirror off to the side of his brother's room and decided to go over there and look at himself. Luigi made it to the giant mirror that loomed over him and looked hard at the reflection staring back at him. He was an adorable fox kit with blonde fur, with the fur being slightly darker on his muzzle, marking where his moustache used to be, and the fur also being slightly darker on the tips of fluff on the top of his head that were reminiscent of his old hair style. As he looked more, he discovered he did in fact retain his eye color with the silver ring still around his pupils, but then he noticed something else. There were small thin stripes of white fur on his back that were positioned and matched the shapes of the scars on his back. Luigi couldn't help but shudder at the slight memory of what had happened without going into a full on panic attack.

Luigi decided to leave the mirror before triggering another panic attack and go to his room. Luigi padded down the now giant and long hallway, noticing for the first time the sensation of carpet on the pads on the bottom of his paws. Luigi went into his green room to see all of his possessions loom over him almost menacingly in comparison to his small size. He noticed his clothing sitting on his bed, one of the legs on his pants hanging over the edge of the bed. Luigi decided to get a good look at his clothing, so he walked up to the pant leg, took it in his mouth, slightly recoiling at the taste, and gave it a mighty yank.

Mario was downstairs making pasta, wondering where his recipe he left on the counter went, when a series of loud high-pitched yips rang out. Mario rushed up the stairs to find Luigi buried under his clothing which had brought a shoe down with it, causing the weight of the shoe and clothing to work in tandem to create a suitable trap for little animals, leaving Luigi's head sticking out of the trap looking miserably at Mario.

"You never cease to amaze me with how bad your luck can be and how much trouble you can get in, little bro," said Mario as he freed poor Luigi from his tiny and somewhat pathetic prison. "I'm going to continue making pasta downstairs, so please try not to get yourself trapped somewhere again."

With that, Mario walked out of the room, leaving Luigi somewhat shocked at how vulnerable he was now. Luigi let out a sigh. As much as he was hoping it would wear off in the morning, he knew that that wasn't the case and chances are he was in it for the long haul. How was he going to cope? A prized green possession caught Luigi's attention, derailing his thought train. It was his favorite hat! Rarely was Luigi ever seen without his hat, and it seemed like a sort of comfort item for him. Unfortunately, though, the hat was sitting on top of his bed, which now loomed over Luigi like Mount Everest. Luigi, however, looked so determined to get that hat that it almost seemed like he had weird fox tools for climbing mountainous beds with him. Luigi sized up the situation: He was about half a foot tall from paw to ear tips, he couldn't grab anything, and there wasn't anything leaning against the bed, so he couldn't climb up it. " _That's it! Up!_ " barked Luigi, a bit too excited for only retrieving a hat.

Luigi learned after the Kamek incident that he could jump long distances, but could he still do his famous high jump? Luigi crouched down, chest fur touching the floor, tail poised in the air, and he leapt as far straight upwards that he could. The air rushing through his fur as he ascended felt exhilarating and the bed soon was a seeming speck on the floor at the peak of his jump (though in reality, Luigi was only about five feet in the air and about two feet above the bed). A sudden urge, almost instinctual, overtook Luigi and he found himself waving his tail in a fast circular motion and to his surprise, he wasn't falling, but instead hovering over the bed. Luigi slowed down his tail a bit and gently dropped down on his bed, surprised at how big and springy it was to him as when he was human the bed seemed ordinary and regular. Remembering why he was on the bed in the first place, Luigi walked up to the top of his bed where his hat lay, the green as inviting as a field full of lush grass. Luigi grabbed the hat, slightly recoiling at the taste (why does all of his stuff taste bad? Then again, who goes around licking their stuff?) and held it proudly before jumping off of the bed.

As Luigi jumped, he realized what a mistake he made when he saw how quickly the floor rushed up to meet him. Unfortunately floors are not good at making greetings no matter how carpeted they are and Luigi's paws gave out from under him upon impact, causing him to fall over and lay on the ground, hat still in mouth, in shock. Luigi recovered after shaking the stars from his vision and set his hat down on the ground, inspecting it. The hat was now giant to him, and upon stepping into it, Luigi found that his hat could easily fit him inside it and if he lay down, the hat would probably make an excellent bed. As Luigi yawned, he realized what a long day he had and that the bed idea wasn't such a bad one, so he sat down in his hat, curling up and tucking his tail in to find that he fit perfectly. Luigi scented the mint and strawberries that his shampoo smelled like and smiled to himself and in his half-conscious state wondered why he didn't smell like that anymore. He then realized how utterly pointless that was and tried to get to sleep, only to be interrupted by the sensation of being lifted. Luigi lazily opened one of his eyes halfway to find that Mario picked him up and was carrying him down the hallway to his room. Mario gently set Luigi, still laying in his hat, on the bed and got ready to sleep. It wasn't long before Mario slipped into bed beside Luigi and snuggled him closer. " _Goodnight, Mario._ " whimpered Luigi softly as he drank in the scent of his protecting twin brother, instantly feeling safer and cooing gently as the black blankets of unconsciousness fell upon him.

Luigi awoke to the sound of breakfast cooking. ' _That's weird,_ ' thought Luigi to himself, not fully awake yet ' _I typically cook the food!_ ' Luigi tried to get up, only to be met to the sensation of his fur ruffling as he shifted himself to an upright position. He forgot that he had turned into a fox, and whimpered as he looked down at his paws, muzzle in his line of vision. " _I'll never look at a dog the same way again,_ " cooed Luigi silently " _Gee life's ruff. I should probably get downstairs to see how things are coming._ " Luigi got out of his hat and stumbled to the edge of the bed, wondering how he was going to get down without a repeat of the previous night, when he found a nice little ramp made of books leading to the ground. Luigi instantly came to the conclusion that Mario must have made it while he was still asleep and Luigi thanked him in his mind for thinking ahead. Luigi made his way carefully down the ramp, almost slipping a few times as his claws scrabbled against the laminated surfaces of the books without finding much of a grip to hold onto.

Luckily, he made it to the floor without falling and found a new respect for shoes and how they helped him not slip (even though he typically slipped anyways due to being slightly clumsy). Something caught Luigi's eyes as he started walking towards the door to go downstairs; it was a note from Mario on top of a pile of Luigi's clothing, neatly folded with care. The note simply said in Mario's somewhat messy cursive writing:

 _In case you change back ~ Mario_

Luigi knew that if he could cry (interestingly, I believe I learned that humans are the only creatures capable of crying), he would be sobbing right now. However, he was a fox now and foxes couldn't cry and all he could do was whimper sadly as he stared at the note longingly, wishing he could read it and rejoice that he was human again. Moreover, he wished that he could at least say something nice to his brother instead of only able to make unintelligible animal sounds, but unfortunately things weren't that simple and Luigi knew it. Somewhere deep within his mind, he knew that this infliction wasn't just going to wear off and that something else had to be done if he wanted to be changed back. The rumbling of his stomach startled Luigi from his thoughts as he continued to stare at the note. Luigi decided to resume going downstairs and getting breakfast as he exited his brother's room and into the hallway, suddenly noticing for the first time all the sunbeams playing with the window glass and shining their rays down onto the carpeted floor, almost inviting Luigi to come over and lie down on his back and sun himself.

Luigi shook that thought away and continued his journey to the kitchen for some food, but suddenly he ran into the biggest obstacle that he'd ever faced in his life since the giant haunted mansion: the stairs to the first floor. Luigi looked at those giant steps that lay in front of him and knew that they'd probably be the death of him. He felt like howling for help, but he knew that this was a trial to be faced on his own for the noble cause of breakfast. Luigi shifted towards the start of the first stair, going slowly to prevent falling. He carefully took his first step and made it, his balance slightly off, but he made it. Suddenly disaster struck! A fly buzzed around and landed on Luigi's muzzle, which tickled Luigi and caused him to shake it off and lose his tentative balance! Mario was in the kitchen eating his breakfast when he heard a series of dull thumps followed by loud yips, then there was silence. Mario didn't register this for a second, then remembered: he forgot to do something to the stairs so Luigi could get down safely! This also brought the realization that Luigi didn't change back, which caused a sort of sad feeling in Mario. But that didn't matter right now, so Mario dropped his fork onto his plate and rushed to the base of the stairs and found poor Luigi laying on his back looking shocked as he stared at the ceiling.

"Are you alright, little bro?" asked Mario, slowly scooping Luigi up off the floor gently.

" _Yes_ " moaned Luigi, shaking the stars out of his vision

Mario correctly interpreted the moan as a yes and proceeded to carry Luigi into the kitchen so he could eat. Mario set Luigi on the floor on a mat he laid out on the cold linoleum floor earlier and placed two green dog food dishes in front of him. Luigi looked up at Mario questioningly as Mario grabbed what looked like a can and opened it and dumped it's contents into one of the bowls in front of Luigi, then he filled the other bowl with water. It was clearly dog food in the one bowl and it reeked to Luigi and he instinctively drew away his head in disgust. Mario sat down at the table and started eating again, when he noticed the look of disgust on the tiny fox's face.

" I went to the store this morning and picked up some things for you," Mario started, mouth still full of the eggs that he was eating. "As hypocritical as it may seem, I want to make sure that you're healthy and in tip top shape. You're a fox now, a baby at that, and I don't want you getting chubby with human food. Unfortunately the store didn't have fox food, in fact they laughed at me for asking, so I got the next best thing. Foxes are part of the canine family, so I figured dog food was probably close enough. The clerk said that dogs really liked the taste of this one."

Luigi stared at his chubby older brother, somewhat indignant that he had to eat the garbage in front of him while Mario got to eat the good stuff. Having enhanced senses didn't help him as he slowly leaned his head down to take a bite. He took a small bite. It actually tasted pretty darn good! Luigi scarfed down the entire bowl without another thought about the rancid smell, almost choking a few times due to his mouth working slightly differently and a few stray pieces of food trying to make it down his windpipe as he breathed. When he finished eating, Luigi looked up at Mario, who had a smug look on his face that clearly said 'I told you so', and gave him a good glare. Luigi then moved on to the water dish. He looked down at it questioningly, not sure how he was going to drink it.

"I think you need to cup the base of your tongue and try lifting the water back to your mouth like that," Mario said helpfully, to which Luigi gave him a grateful glance before attempting to do so.

Luigi managed to get down all the water, but was still slightly hungry. Luigi glanced up at Mario, now working on eating his bacon, and an evil plan formulated. Ever since man had tamed animals, the especially small ones developed a powerful weapon to get what they wanted and more (typically food though): cuteness. Luigi hoped and prayed that he was able to do this as he put his masterful plan into action. Luigi pranced up to Mario lightly and made the cutest high pitched cooing noise that he could muster while rubbing his head up against Mario's leg.

"Luigi, stop that. It's weird," Mario said as he looked down, but was caught in Luigi's trap. Luigi stared up at Mario with his sparkling blue eyes, the grey ring around the pupils seeming extra bright and his blonde fur seeming extra fluffy, as he began the most pitiful whimpering noise known to man. There was no possible way that Mario could say no to a face like that.

"I hate you," Mario muttered as he grabbed a piece of bacon off his plate and set it on the floor for Luigi, who snatched it up without a moment of hesitation, licking the delicious bacon grease off his muzzle.

" _And I hate you too,_ " cooed Luigi as he began to patter off.

His plan had worked! Although he didn't seem to "inherit" the walking instinct, he at least had the cuteness instinct down. Even though being stuck like that still sucked for Luigi regardless of what he could do, he at least had some things like that to make the entire ordeal slightly better.

"Oh, and before I forget, I also got this for you," said Mario as he caught Luigi's attention and grabbed something green out of his pocket.

Mario set it on the floor and Luigi pattered up to it, his claws clicking oddly on the linoleum floor. Upon closer inspection it seemed to be a collar with a green bandana sewn to the front of it, completely covering up the collar to where if Luigi was wearing it, it would look like he only had a bandana tied around his neck. Mario picked up Luigi and set him in his lap and put the collar on Luigi, who couldn't help but try to use a back leg to try to get it off as it ruffled the fur on his neck uncomfortably.

"Now don't go doing that," Mario admonished, gently taking Luigi's paw away from the collar. "We're going to professor Egadd's today to see if he can fix you, and no, not in the way that typically applies to pets. I figured that if you somehow got separated from me, that you wouldn't end up in the clutches of animal control because someone called in a wild fox wandering around. Also, I sewed the bandanna on so you'd at least have some degree of dignity and didn't have to feel as much like a dog by wearing a straight up collar."

Luigi's ears perked up at the mention of Egadd and the possibility to get fixed. He looked up at Mario with appreciation glistening in his eyes and his tail wagging with happiness. Mario smiled down at his brother, glad to see his spirits somewhat lifted.

"We're going to leave in a half an hour. Not that you could really get ready in any real way. It's nice to see your spirits up again," said Mario as he set Luigi upon the floor. "Also, even if you did change back in the middle of the night, it would have been sort of awkward in the morning, if you know what I mean. But either way, little bro, we'll find a way to restore you to human again."

And with that, Mario got up and walked off to get ready to take Luigi to Egadd, with hope in his heart that something could be done for his little brother. Luigi also was hopeful, as a life of eating dog food didn't sound all that appealing to him in the long run. Little did Luigi know that a giant road of trials that would put his brotherly bond with Mario to the test and thoroughly shake him to the core. But for now, Luigi only had to worry about sunning himself in the heat of the early morning sun.

 _God, this chapter took forever to write. The story is starting to pick up and who knows what will happen. I'm also trying to keep this story fairly light hearted and funny, so I don't fall into the trap of this story taking itself too seriously. I referenced the DiC cartoon episode when Luigi said "Life's ruff", so balloons or whatever to you if you caught that. I really couldn't help but put the cuteness part in. I mean, unless you don't have a heart (like me), how could you possibly stand the dreaded puppy dog eyes? The answer is you can't. I also somewhat based the brotherly interaction off how my older brother and I would do it. My older brother and I had a pretty good relationship with him and we got along, so maybe the brotherly interaction was off. How my brother and I treated each other is all I know. This chapter turned out to be very long (9 pages in WPS) because there was no proper place to end the chapter without splitting this into two very short chapters, which I didn't really want to do. I really have nothing else to say, so now its time for_ _ **Editorial notes with Norman: The part of the fanfiction where Norman reads over old chapters (and bangs his head against the wall repeatedly when he finds stupid mistakes he didn't catch back in the process of writing the chapter and didn't have time to proof read before posting the chapter):**_

 _Me: Alrighty, let's reread what I have done. I've gotten some good reviews on this, so let's see what the chapters look like outside of the long monotony_

 _*reads chapter 1*_

 _Me: "an unwelcome in the room" ? What the heck? How did I miss that?_

 _*reads chapter 2*_

 _Me: "Regardless of the mysterious appearance of a new limb, it was still and limb and needed to be washed"? I thought I wrote "It was still a new limb and needed to be washed"! Gosh darnit [though in reality we all know that nobody just says gosh darnit (unless you retained your innocence), but instead say things that would need to be bleeped out on tv]_

 _ **And that is all for today. Thanks for reading**_

 _And don't forget when burning down a building, don't forget to wear a seatbelt. Buckle up for safety!_


	7. Chapter 7: Into the Woods

_And I'm back again! No nuclear bomb can kill me, no wave can drown me, and no stress can make my hair turn white! Norman Whitesmith here again to bring you the next chapter in the riveting tale of Kitsune Curse! Trash is still going on in my life and is somewhat making it hard to continue writing, but this story is my baby and I'm not going to let it die! Besides, I'm enjoying writing it too much to give up on it. So at least one person is interested in the original story line of Kitsune Curse (funny story, I didn't name this fanfiction until I posted the very first chapter on this site. I literally came up with a name on the spot and decided "Works for me"). So here are the story details that were originally going to be until I decided that I could do better/this wouldn't create a long enough story:_

 _The original story was similar to the final version (in which you are reading) in the fact that Luigi gets turned into a kitsune, but the circumstances were much different. In the original, I was inspired by Winter Stardust, I believe it was, on Dev*antArt (I think I read somewhere you aren't supposed to name other sites, so I'm going to censor them just to be safe) who wrote about Luigi getting traumatic experiences in the first run-through of the mansion, and a medicine to help him calm down in the story was a kitsune leaf. As you can see, some of this still made it into the story, but I put my own spins on it and made it different. So the idea originally was that E. Gadd had created a kitsune leaf that calmed Luigi down without him growing the tail and such, but when Luigi was leaving the bunker, King Boo saw this and put a curse on the Kitsune Leaf. This had the effect of turning Luigi into a kitsune when he took the leaf that night (read the story by Winter Stardust (I probably butchered the name) and this will make slightly more sense) to help him calm down. When Luigi goes outside that night because he heard a noise or something, the leaf takes effect and turns him into a kitsune. Then King Boo comes up and shape shifts into Luigi and takes his place in the house and boots the real Luigi out. Luigi is then found by Wendy (the koopaling) and taken home with her. Luigi then finds a mirror of true form that Wendy has in her room and Luigi is found out to be human, but Wendy doesn't care because she is supposed to be human too (but not a kid, so this wasn't creepy), as it turns out. Wendy then tells Luigi that she and the koopalings were new star children that were born (yoshi's island ds), but Bowser succeeded in capturing them before they got parents, unlike how he failed for Mario and Luigi, and turned them into koopas so they wouldn't become the next most powerful heroes. If this story stayed, it would have ended up being a Luigi X Wendy story, but ultimately this story was scrapped due to it being a somewhat short lived story that wasn't too original and was based too heavily upon someone else's work._

 _This story was mostly just thoughts floating around in my head of possible things to write in the future, then one night when I was going to bed, I was halfway asleep when I got the idea for this story, so I decided to go with it, as I'm not struck by inspiration much (this is actually similar to the last fanfiction I wrote in the manner of how I thought of it. Hooray for ideas I have while halfway asleep) and there aren't any other fanfictions with this premise. I eventually decided to So I created a account and started writing, and that's where this story came from. This story is also very fun to write and I'm glad I actually did write it. I'm guessing that there will be people out there who will be like "But the other story sounded awesome! Why didn't you go with that?", but like with the original story line in Zootopia (if you don' t know about this, look it up), it was never destined to reach the light of day (though I do wish they kept Nick as the main character and stuck with the original story). But that's enough of me blathering on about things in the past, so without further ado, here's chapter 7_

Chapter 7: Into the Woods

Luigi laid basking in the sunlight, his white belly fur heating up with the glorious bliss of the rays of the sun coming down and kissing him, but suddenly a threat appeared. A red and white blur rushed over, and before he could do anything, Luigi was overtaken by it. Before he knew it, he was getting the dreaded sweet-spot belly rub that left him helplessly and involuntarily moving one of his back legs and cooing. There was only one man capable of such a despicable act. That one man could be none other than Mario. Luigi looked up at his older brother and saw he was smiling. Luigi vowed that he would get Mario for this, and that he would not rest until justice was done to his conniving older brother. But after he moved his hand over a bit more to the left…

Mario finally finished torturing Luigi and Luigi promptly got up and speed walked away, still not experienced enough at walking to attempt to run. Luigi looked back to see a smirk plastered on Mario's face, as Mario knew full well that he had won.

"Don't be that way, little bro," said Mario, still smirking as he walked over to Luigi, who wasn't fast enough to get away, and scooped him up. "You know you were just asking for it by laying there completely vulnerable and being so adorable. After all, it's my obligation as your older brother to harass you at every possible opportunity." Mario held Luigi so they were nose to snout. "And after all, what better opportunity is there than now?" asked Mario rhetorically as he moved Luigi back down to chest level and began to stroke him. "I'm only fooling with you, bro. Also, it's time to go, but first a little more shopping needs to be done before we head into the woods."

And with that, Mario walked out of the door of the house, Luigi in hand. As soon as Mario stepped out the door, Luigi felt a warm breeze in the summer air ruffle his chest fur. Luigi couldn't help but lift his muzzle in the air and let out a contented coo. Mario looked down at his little brother and smiled, as he couldn't remember the last time they set out on an adventure like this. As Mario neared the warp pipe near his house, he couldn't help but notice the look of horror twisting up Luigi's fluffy features. Luigi never liked the warp pipes, even as a human, as there was just something about them that unnerved him. Regardless of whether this fear was about botching the landing or the suffocating darkness within, Luigi always avoided taking warp pipes when at all possible and went for the longer, but tranquil, forest trail instead. Mario gave the fox kit a reassuring pat as they neared the pipe.

"It's okay, Luigi. I will never let go of you and I will keep you safe." Mario said as he clutched the fox closer and the fox in turn shut his eyes tightly and snuggled up closer. Luigi was more adorable then he could ever know.

Mario climbed up onto the lip of the pipe and slowly counted to three, for Luigi's sake, and jumped in. The all too familiar blackness surrounded Mario as the sensation of falling overtook him. Mario learned how fun this could be and didn't mind it anymore after the first few times. Luigi involuntarily let out a few high pitched whines as he shook in fear, the whines echoing off the walls of the pipe. Suddenly the gravity switch came and up became down and vice versa. The light that was now below Mario's feet grew and rushed up to meet Mario and Luigi. Pop! Suddenly Mario was in open air as he blasted out of the pipe, Luigi curled up in a tight shaking ball in Mario's arms, as the world around them spun. Mario was experienced in this and maneuvered his weight to where his feet were properly facing the ground as he felt a moment of weightlessness. That moment disappeared without a trace, however, and was replaced with gravity pulling the duo to the ground. As always, Mario nailed the landing perfectly. If he was so great at performing athletic feats like this, then why was he perpetually chubby…?

But that doesn't matter as it was just another trip in the pipes for Mario and the most terrifying joy ride for Luigi. Mario looked down at Luigi, who was still shaking violently and whimpering. Mario realized that now was probably the best time to gently set Luigi down and let him go relieve himself behind a bush and be glad that Luigi didn't have an accident on him. As Mario watched the shuddering fox start wandering off to a nearby bush, he couldn't help but wonder if it would have been best for him to have just taken the forest path.

Luigi shakily got down from Mario's arms as Mario gently lowered him to the ground. That was the second most terrifying experience of his life, second only to… it's better not to think of that, especially now. Luigi almost crawled to a nearby bush and went behind it and after figuring out how to relieve himself in this form, walked back to Mario, still slightly shaking. What the two didn't notice was that a small crowd formed around them as they noticed that Mario must have got a new pet, after hearing about the fox thing from the store clerk. Luigi didn't have a chance to make the full distance back to Mario before he was swarmed by townsfolk who noticed the cute baby animal and wanted to pet it. Squeals of joy and happiness echoed through the streets as the townsfolk petted the very soft fox kit and cooed at him.

A few minutes and a thoroughly ruffled pelt later, Mario and Luigi were off to the store again, Luigi now regretting all the dogs he pet in the past and how unintentionally uncomfortable he was being when he pet them.

' _Of course the town notices me now that I've turned into an animal,'_ thought Luigi to himself as he walked, looking down and noticing how the rough pads on the bottom of his paws very nicely protected them from rocks and other things that would hurt to step on normally. ' _Normally they can't even remember I exist or my name even!'_

Soon the Mario brothers arrived at the Toad Town grocery store, ready to shop and prepare for their journey. Mario picked up Luigi and walked inside the door to be greeted by the store clerk, who as soon as he noticed Luigi, couldn't help but swoon with love.

" _God, why does everyone seem to act like they've never seen a baby animal before._ " Luigi grumbled to himself as the shop keeper couldn't help but have his hand gravitate to Luigi and start petting him.

"Oh! You weren't kidding when you were mentioning a baby fox!" squealed the store clerk as he continued petting "What did you name him?"

"Luigi," answered Mario automatically before realizing his mistake as he noticed the look of confusion on the clerk's face.

"But isn't that your little brother's name?" asked the store clerk.

"I-it is, but since my full name is Mario Mario, I figured that I might as well have another Luigi around," said Mario, expertly saving himself.

The store clerk laughed a little "Okay. Do you have any idea why he has this odd coloration? It's clearly not because he's albino, because the darker and lighter parts of his fur wouldn't appear on an albino animal, and he's pretty obviously a fox, so it's not because he's a different species"

"Hmm," Mario responded, looking down at Luigi as he never really thought of the small fox's odd coloring "I actually don't know. I never really thought of it before. When I saw him, I knew he was perfect and I didn't really care about the color of his fur and such."

"Oh. Well that's really sweet! Also, he has to be on a leash in here. Sorry, store rules."

"But he's completely docile and obedient! He may be a few weeks old or less, but he's already obedient. Here, I'll prove it!" said Mario as he set Luigi on the counter, his eyes very clearly deadpanning 'play along' as he started listing off commands given to dogs

"Sit. Shake. Roll over. Speak!" Mario commanded, as Luigi complied and finished off by strutting over to the clerk and rubbing himself against the toad while cooing, for good measure. The clerk was so pleased that his eyes almost looked like hearts as he gave Mario the go ahead to just carry Luigi through the store. Shopping was uneventful as Mario stocked up on powerups and Luigi sat in his arms, smelling the new scents of the super market. Finally, shopping was done and Mario once again stepped into the sunlight, helpfully shielding Luigi's eyes for him. Luigi gave Mario's hand a lick of appreciation, though Luigi wished he could do more to express his gratitude towards his caring brother. Suddenly, pink filled the vision of both brothers. It was Princess Peach!

"Mario," she said somewhat unsteadily, her voice clearly wobbling conveying stress. "I need to talk to you. Alone."

Mario slowly nodded and set Luigi upon the ground only for him to almost instantly start to get chased around by a small toad girl who wanted to pet the "fluffy doggie". Looks like occupying Luigi wouldn't take too much. Peach turned her head back to Mario, unable to hold back a small smile at the sight of the poor fox getting chased by a small child who wouldn't give up, but her look almost instantly turned back to seriousness.

"Mario," she began again as she began to fidget with a lock of her hair "It's about Luigi. Toadsworth and I were talking and we felt it might be best to…"

Peach paused, the beginning of tears glistening in her sky blue eyes.

"We think it might be best if you were… to release Luigi into the wild."

"WHAT?!" Mario shouted to where some nearby toads turned their heads to see the cause of the commotion, but Luigi didn't seem to notice as it seemed that the entire Toad Town preschool seemed to join in the 'fluffy doggie' chase and he was a bit preoccupied "This is my little brother we're talking about! Luigi is just a harmless baby fox who's absolutely helpless and needs someone to take care of him! He's still my brother even though he looks a bit different now!" Mario started, tears freely rolling down his face as he tried to fight the royal authority to keep his brother, who he loved dearly. "Please don't take him from me, he's all I got."

"I know he is, Mario," Peach stated, glistening tears sliding down her face. "But Toadsworth recognizes this and sees that if you're too busy taking care of Luigi in order to save me from a future plot by someone, then what is the kingdom to do? It's for the kingdom, Mario."

"He's still my brother and we can cope somehow. In fact, we're heading to E. Gadd's right now to see if we can get him fixed."

"But that's the thing Mario. Do you even know if he's mentally still there? Do you know if he's still Luigi or if he got his mind replaced with an animal's? For all we know, Luigi can be gone right now, never to return!"

"But he's still shown mannerisms that he displayed as a human. I even doubt if he's still there, regardless of all the Luigi-like traits that he seems to display. I know the feeling, but I need to treat him as if he's still my brother no matter what. Please don't make me release him." Mario pleaded, tears still rolling

"I'm sorry, Mario, but this is an order. Toadsworth wanted this, not me," said Peach, looking sadly down at the ground, but suddenly her face lit up with an idea "Wait! If you get E. Gadd to prove that's Luigi's still here mentally, then maybe Toadsworth will allow Luigi to stay! I will tell him now that you are going to E. Gadd's to do that!"

Peach ran off, obviously happier looking, as if an entire burden got lifted off her shoulders, clearly indicating that she didn't want to do this to Luigi either. Mario looked across the cobble brick street to see that poor Luigi had been caught and was being subjected to the petting of his lifetime at the hands of preschoolers. Mario went over and rescued his brother, wiping the tears from his eyes on his sleeve before doing so, and the two set off towards the woods, ready to face the journey.

It was about noon when the brothers hit a small clearing in the dense woods and decided to have a nice lunch. Mario decided to spare Luigi the dog food, though he seemed to like it, and give his brother part of his sandwich that he brought. Ordinarily part of a sandwich would not be even close to filling, but Luigi was tiny now, and to him, that sandwich was a feast worth remembering. The brothers were enjoying their sandwiches when suddenly a twig snap pulled Mario and Luigi out of their thoughts. Both looked around warily, when Luigi lifted his muzzle to the air and sniffed. There was an unfamiliar scent in the air. They were not alone. Luigi did the only thing he could do and started barking rapidly, his adorable little yaps not the least bit intimidating, but they did what they intended to do and the attackers revealed themselves.

It was four koopa troopas with camouflage paint disguising their features against the dense forest back drop. Mario instantly took his fighting stance when suddenly a koopa hit him from behind, sweeping Mario's legs out from under him before he had a chance to react. The koopas were swift and smooth as they tied Mario to a tree, ignoring Luigi because he was no real threat to them, other than perhaps yapping them to death. Luigi stared at the enemies, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn't bite them, Luigi observed, because they weren't anywhere near as big as Bowser, hence meaning their weak spots not protected by their shells weren't big enough to get at. Luigi could only wait as they thoroughly tied up Mario. Suddenly, an opportunity came when the koopas finished tying up Mario and went off to the side a little to boast about what rewards they were going to get from Bowser for capturing Mario. Typical minions.

Luigi knew he had to act, so he snuck over to Mario quick as a flash and did a hover jump, hovering at Mario's pocket level. Luigi knew that if he released Mario, that chances are the koopas would defeat him again and the same result of being tied up would result. Luigi also knew that he had the element of surprise on his side, thus making it so that if he attacked using a powerup, assuming he could still use them, the attack would be more effective. Luigi quickly shoved his muzzle down Mario's pocket as Mario stared at his hovering brother weirdly, not knowing what or why any of this was happening. Luigi closed his jaws around the first thing he could find and brought it out and dropped to the forest floor. Luigi set the powerup down on the ground, seeing it was a fire flower, and licked it to activate it ((in these stories, a powerup is activated by licking it, and that applies to both Mario and Luigi)). Luigi felt a rush of heat as the flower took it's effects and started pumping fire through his veins. Luigi's honey colored fur turned black, as the white sections turned green and his bandanna and collar turned orange. Luigi felt a rush of heat on his tail and turned his head to see his tail ignite into bright green flame, the heat singeing the nearby twigs on the ground.

The koopas looked up from their conversation as soon as they all realized "that annoying dog hasn't barked in awhile", and they soon realized what a mistake they made of not watching the animal when they saw the flaming fox glaring at them. Luigi gathered up his courage and ran for the first time as a fox, eyes set upon the koopas and making them pay. Regardless of their surprise, the koopas managed to start attempting to fight back. Luigi worked hard dodging the shells and bites coming from the koopas, while counter attacking by swishing the hot flaming tail at them. It started to get harder and harder for Luigi to dodge all the hits and Luigi quickly acted by running in a circle around the koopas, dragging his tail on the ground to effectively create a ring of fire to close in on the koopas. Luigi darted in and out of the ring of fire, one by one knocking the koopas far away into the forest with his tail. Suddenly the last one managed to bite down on Luigi's flank with it's beak. Hard. Luigi lost his powers as he managed to knock the last one away. That left but one problem: Luigi no longer had fire immunity and was stuck in the center of a ring of fire that was closing in on him fast. Luigi squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the fur on his body start to singe. His somewhat unexpected end was imminent and Luigi began to whimper, ready as he ever could be to face his end.

Suddenly the fire surrounding Luigi went out and a cool feeling swept over him. He opened up his eyes and looked up to see Mario, who must have used the time that the koopas were focused on Luigi to escape, standing over him and made of ice. He must have used one of the new ice flowers that had recently been discovered that turned you completely to ice as well as giving you powers. Mario picked up Luigi and hugged him close, realizing just how close he was to losing his brother.

"Well, it's a good thing that the koopas only knew how to tie a granny knot, because otherwise we would have both been dead!" Mario chuckled shakily, trying to lighten the mood and make his brother feel better, who was clearly shaken by his near death experience. "You did a great job fighting, little bro. You certainly held your own and showed great bravery."

The two brothers then started to trudge on in silence, Mario's ice powers starting to wear off as he started to turn to flesh and bone again and once again providing Luigi some more warmth. Luigi was happy that he had a brother who would always look out for him no matter what, and drifted off to sleep once again, taking in the warmth and comfort of his older brother's arms. Mario stared down at the sleeping fox and smiled. Sure he didn't really know if it was still Luigi in there, but either way, he knew that no matter what happens, he would still be his brother and he needed to treat him as such. Mario carefully moved and put the sleeping fox into his overalls so to free up his hand movement. Mario couldn't help but smile as he started to feel Luigi's heartbeat against him, seemingly much quicker than a human's, but it still reminded him how brave his brother was and how it almost cost Luigi his life, but he was still alive and breathing. A small light in the distance caught Mario's attention, and upon closer inspection it was E. Gadd's bunker a little bit further off. The source and hope for Luigi's future

 _And that there is chapter 7. Someone brought to my attention that I was referring to E. Gadd as Egadd, so I fixed that this chapter. Thanks to that person for telling me about it. Once again, please continue to criticize my work so I can continue to improve to make this better. Also, trash is still going on in my life (chances are it isn't going to stop anytime soon), but I still write chapters when I can. Also, as a look into a future, the fanfiction that I'm going to write after I finish this one is going to be called_ _ **"Mario and Luigi: King Boo's Curse"**_ _and it's sort of going to be a collab between me and Pikminfan, but not a true blooded collab as she isn't going to be directly writing it, but helping me out with story ideas. If interest is shown, then I will give a preview chapter. Another thing to possibly look forward to is a one-shot I plan on writing soon (for the Mario series) entitled_ _ **"I'm not him"**_ _. Also my buddy Christina (you know who you are) is supposed to be reading this. If you are reading this, Christina, then great job. I will now be able to tell if you are actually reading this based on if you say something about this. Checkmate! One more thing is that the ice flower is based from Super Mario Galaxy, a great game that I've never played due to never having a Wii. That about sums it up, so until next time, Norm out! And remember to hunt down Christina and maim her in the middle of the night while dressed as Bans (an OC fusion of Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) and Sans (Undertale)) if she isn't reading this! (And knowing me as the World's greatest speller, I probably misspelled her name)_


	8. Chapter 8: Recurring Memories

_Woot woot! Norman back for Chapter 8! I have to say that I'm touched with the amount of support I'm getting from my readers. Thank you all! This story wouldn't exist without you, the reader! Or it would exist and would have all the spelling/formatting errors and such that others pointed out that I have since (or at least tried to) fixed. Before starting the chapter, to elaborate on the original plot being short lived, what I meant by that is that I really couldn't/can't think of filler material for that plot. After all, it's not the destination that matters, but the journey, and I'm at least trying to make it a good one for this. Please continue to criticize my work and I'll improve. Heck, when this is over with (or when I'm bored), I'm probably going to go back and rewrite some chapters and fix some issues with them. I'd also like to give a giant shout out to my three most consistent reviewers: Pikminfan and Rockster (a guest) and an unnamed Guest (or at least I'm assuming this is the same person reviewing). Every time I post a new chapter, I eagerly await to see what these awesome people have to say about it. So a big thanks to you guys! Reading what you have got to say makes writing this worth while! Also, one big issue that Rockster has pointed out that I'm still trying to fix is the "it's" and "its". The reason why I keep messing that up is because usually " 's " means possessive (e.g. Luigi's Mansion) or I subconsciously view it's as a shortening of "it is", so when I'm not 100% focused, that's why I keep making those mistakes. Also, as I'm writing this author's note, I just played some Conker's Bad Fur Day and I was in a section of the game where Conker was drunk and the screen was going wonky as he was in a nightclub with flashing lights, so now after looking at that long enough, the computer screen is swimming in front of me. Also, the aforementioned game is a game that I'd recommend, but it's rated M, so don't play it unless you think you can handle it (just don't let your parents catch you playing it) or are at least somewhere near the age of 18. But I'm done with my rather pointless rabble now and so without further ado, here's Chapter 8_

Chapter 8: Recurring Memories

Luigi was human again and standing in a field of flowers. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and the best part was Daisy standing looking at Luigi with her arms open wide.

"Come here," Daisy said playfully. "Let's have a good time."

Daisy's smile was brighter than the sun and she seemed to radiate happiness. Luigi couldn't help but comply as he began to run through the flowers to end up in the arms of his lover, but suddenly everything started getting bigger. Luigi's legs let out a sharp pain as they suddenly bent backwards sending Luigi falling towards the ground. Luigi caught himself with his hands, but they started painfully twisting up and withering until they were paws. A pain in his tailbone indicated to Luigi that he was growing a tail as a burning feeling swept over Luigi and he started growing blonde fur everywhere, even in the most uncomfortable spots. Luigi watched as his nose in his field of vision started pushing outwards and taking his mouth with it, forming a snout with a wet nose on the end. Luigi wasn't human anymore and was once again a miserable fox, staring at his love interest pitifully. The field wasn't so sunny anymore and thunder boomed in the sky. Daisy's face turned dark with hatred as she stared at Luigi with condescendence.

"I don't date animals," Daisy said with a sneer as she snatched up Luigi and snapped an uncomfortably tight collar on him.

Luigi started whimpering as she grabbed out a leash and snapped it on and carelessly dropped him to the ground and began to drag him away. Luigi's claws left groves in the dirt as he was dragged along. Daisy stopped and picked up Luigi roughly and shoved him in a rusty cage and slammed the door shut and locked it and walked away. The ground gave out beneath the cage and Luigi was falling eternally through darkness, when a flash of red stood out to him and gave him hope. It was Mario! Luigi started barking to get his attention, but when Mario turned around, everything was off. Mario's eyes weren't present, but instead had lifeless black and empty sockets. Suddenly Mario said in a seemingly demonic voice the most horrifying words imaginable to Luigi:

"You're not my brother."

Luigi jumped with a start and started whimpering. He opened his eyes to see blue denim surrounding him along with a lot of warmth. It was all but a dream. But where was he? Luigi began to struggle until a giant hand wrapped around him and pulled him up. Luigi was face to face with Mario, who had a lot of concern on his face.

"What's wrong?" Mario asked. "Did you have a bad dream or something? You jumped a bit and started shaking."

Luigi realized he was shaking violently due to how badly the dream startled him. Mario pulled Luigi into a warm embrace and started stroking him.

"It's alright," Mario said in a low and soothing voice. "No matter what happens, I'll be here for you."

Luigi nuzzled Mario warmly as he stopped shaking, for shaking was impossible when he was in such a warm hug. Mario started cradling Luigi in one arm as he drew near to a metal door that was suddenly in front of them.

"Also, we've arrived at E. Gadd's," Mario said as he reached out his free hand to ring the doorbell. "At least I didn't have to wake you up myself. After years of dealing with waking you up for school, I know that it is no easy undertaking to wake you up."

 _Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-dong._ Was that "We Are Number One"? Luigi winced as the high pitched noises as they seemed to penetrate his skull and swim around inside his head. Having enhanced hearing was both a blessing and a curse. After the bells finished reverberating, a elderly sounding "Come in, the door's unlocked" sounded faintly from what seemed like underground. Mario opened the door and it creaked as a fog like substance that seemed to stick to the ground leaked out from behind the door. Quite mood setting, really. When the fog cleared, a small ladder and hatch emerged from the shadows and into view, the small flickering bulb hanging from a threadbare wire barely illuminating it.

"Welp, only one place to go," Mario said nervously, trying to comfort Luigi as well, but not noticing Luigi wasn't scared.

Why should Luigi been scared when he had already been here many times? On the most terrifying night of his life when he got attacked, Luigi had descended and ascended this ladder many times, and quite frankly, it was the least terrifying thing in that night compared to the ghosts monsters and other things. Mario carefully set Luigi in his overalls to where he didn't fall out and began descending the ladder as it creaked under every step Mario took. Mario reached the bottom and stepped down and turned around to see the most grotesque monster he had ever seen illuminated in the dense fog that seemed to surround them, smelling of fire. Mario took a fighting stance as a seemingly satanic choking noise came out of the creatures throat as it was presumably trying to speak. Despite it not showing on Mario's face, he was terrified inside. Suddenly a loud whirring sound filled the air.

The dense fog started clearing away before a word can be said, and as the air began clear again, it revealed a queer looking old man with a single tuft of white hair sticking up from his otherwise bald scalp. Spectacles with strange glass in them covered his eyes from view and he had a weird shaped vacuum mounted on his back. There was no monster, but instead this old man with the vacuum on his back was causing the shadow that seemed to be a monster! Mario almost let out an audible sigh of relief, but the odd old man began to speak.

"Oh! You must be Luigi's brother!" The old man spoke in his somewhat high-pitched voice. "I remember you from just after the lad freed you from your portrait prison. We didn't get to talk much, though. Sorry about the smoke, I was trying to make pizza and got distracted while trying to figure out the meaning of life. Just for refreshers, the name's Elvin Gadd, or E. Gadd as others typically call me. So what can I do you for, sonny? Also, where's Luigi? I would think that he would have come too if you were coming."

' _Typical Mario, randomly showing up at people's houses with little to no warning he was coming. I'd really like to see him try to explain all of this,'_ thought Luigi to himself as Mario began to speak.

"You see, that's just it. Luigi is here with me and he's the reason why I'm here," said Mario as he held out Luigi for the professor to see. "This is Luigi. I really need you to try to fix him. Or at least you need to prove that he retained his mind and didn't have it replaced with an animal's. Toadsworth is going to make me get rid of him if it can't be proved. Please help, you're my and Luigi's only hope."

The professor's expression was unreadable for a few seconds as he stood there, deep in thought at the fairly shocking new revelation.

"Was it done by magic, or was it done by other means?"

"That's another thing. Kamek was the one who did it, clearly, as he said so himself, but none of us know exactly how he did this to Luigi. I would say that it was probably done by a spell, seeing as how it was done by a magikoopa, but none of anybody who knows about this knows that for sure, so don't take my word for it."

"Hmm. I'm going to need a blood sample from Luigi for some tests."

"Great! Also, the main and present issue is that if Luigi's mind changed throughout this process."

" Well of course his mind changed!"

"What?"

"I said of course his mind changed. Let me walk you through this a little. How do your limbs move when you want them to?"

Mario pondered a second, thinking back to his doctor training. "I believe that your limb moves because your brain tells the limb to move?"

"Precisely! When you want your arm to move, the brain sends a message to the muscles in your arm to contract and that causes movement. Now for the sake of this example, imagine you have two different game systems. Let's say you have a Wii U and a 3DS. They both are computers that serve similar functions, which is to entertain by reading data off of discs. In this scenario, the game cartridge is the brain, which functions and can cause certain effects in the screen, which in this case, represents the body. Now say we were to cram a Wii U game disk into a 3DS system. What would happen? It's clear that the entire thing wouldn't even work remotely, as one: the disc is way too big, and two: the systems are entirely different and aren't really compatible with one another. So if we were to apply this situation to Luigi, how he normally is will be represented by the Wii U and how he is now is represented by the 3DS. His brain had to of shrank in size in order to fit in his tiny little noggin' and in order for him to be able to move at all, his brain had to of been altered a little bit in order to make it so he could move and control his body. So really, its not a matter of if his brain changed, it is a matter of how much his brain changed, which hopefully I'll be able to test."

"Oh," Mario said, sad that his brother had indeed changed. "I see. But what do we do now?"

"We'll do what we can," replied E. Gadd frankly, with no panic or worry showing in his voice at all as he grabbed Luigi from Mario and began to walk into another room with him. "I'm going to take him into another room to get a blood sample from him to see if there are any clues in his blood as to why this happened. I'm taking him in another room because based upon stories Luigi told me of you, you hate needles with a passion and get nervous around them."

With that E. Gadd took Luigi into the training room where Luigi had memories of the professor telling him how to catch ghosts in order to save his brother. Luigi couldn't help but smile a bit at the memories of him and the professor hanging out a little. The professor noticed the look of deep thought on Luigi's face and gave him a one-toothed grin. The professor gently set Luigi down on the ground and Luigi found a comfortable position to sit in and stared up at the professor expectantly.

"You doing alright, my boy?" E. Gadd asked gently as he patted the small fox's head. "I can tell that its still you in there underneath all that fur. You may not be able to communicate, but I can just tell. There's just something that's always present in your eyes, a certain gleam if you will, that just wouldn't be there if you weren't you. I may not be able to sufficiently prove it to your brother now, but I can tell you're still there. I just need to prove it."

Luigi looked at E. Gadd, grateful that someone fully believed in him.

"Now," said E. Gadd as he pulled a needle out of his pocket. "I'm going to get that blood sample. Don't worry because I'll be as gentle as possible. As per usual, it'll just be a little pinch. It's better if you don't tense up."

And with that Luigi squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the needle. A small pinch near Luigi's hind legs (luckily not near where Kamek stuck him. That would have hurt a lot.) made Luigi want to tense up, but he knew better. It was all over in a second and E. Gadd was looking satisfied as he held a tube full of Luigi's blood. Next he grabbed a weird tube looking thingy, about the size of the syringe that he used on Luigi, but without the plunger and the needle.

" _What's that?_ " barked Luigi silently, forgetting once again that he couldn't talk as his curiosity got the better of him.

E. Gadd looked up at Luigi and continued his work while speaking, correctly assuming that Luigi was curious. "I'm making a special syringe for Mario. Considering you're twin brothers, it would be helpful to have a sample of blood to compare yours to, and your brother's sample of blood should be a good "control group" due to being close to yours, methinks. I'm going to need your help getting a sample from him, because he's afraid of needles, and no matter how much brotherly love he's got for you, I don't think that he's just going to offer up a sample with his paralyzing fear of needles. So here's the plan: I'm creating a special syringe that you can operate by squeezing the tube by biting down on it. So what I'm going to do is try to corner Mario with a needle while you come up from behind while he least expects it and stick your needle in him and get a sample. I know you can do it," as E. Gadd finished speaking, he finished putting the syringe together with a heavy duty needle on the end. "This should be sturdy enough to get through his overalls and hold up. The plan goes into action as soon as I open the door. Good luck, my boy," and with that, the professor winked at him and put the syringe down on the floor for Luigi to pick up, as he walked over to the door.

Luigi did the best he could to conceal the syringe in his mouth so it wasn't too obvious he had one and he crept out the door. He watched as he saw the professor grabbing out a needle as he talked to Mario, and Mario backing away in turn. Luigi very stealthily crept from the doorway he was stationed in, over to the corner that E. Gadd was very slowly driving Mario into, his sheer smallness assisting in his stealth. Mario was getting very close to a wall as the professor closed in on him and Luigi knew he had to make his move before Mario hit the wall and goes another direction. Luigi ran up to Mario, and with a small hop that made it so the needle doesn't go into Mario's shoe, Luigi plunged the needle into Mario's leg, drawing a good amount of blood before Luigi dropped to the floor again, blood filled syringe in his mouth.

Mario winced as soon as he felt the pain in his leg, and as soon as he looked down, he was shocked to see his brother sitting on the floor, syringe in his mouth with the fox equivalent of a smirk on his face.

"Traitor!" Mario said with mock betrayal in his voice. "If you weren't so cute, I'd put you in a cage right now!"

Luigi turned around, intentionally swishing his tail on Mario's leg as he went to give the syringe to E. Gadd. The look of shock that was still somewhat on the red clad plumber's face was too much for the professor and he burst out into a hearty laugh. The laughing was contagious as soon Mario was down in cahoots too and even Luigi was making a noise that could be interpreted as laughter. The trio enjoyed their laughter for a solid two minutes until E. Gadd remembered something that caused a veil of trouble to come over his face. It didn't take much longer than five seconds before Mario noticed and asked what was wrong. E. Gadd looked up with a haunting look reflecting in the spectacles he was wearing.

"Another mansion appeared out of the blue last week," the professor started, getting a shocked look from Mario. "I decided to go exploring to see if I could find anything. I was carrying some equipment, namely a wave detector, which I will explain more about in a second, and the mansion seemed vacant of ghosts and I found some treasure. Suddenly there was a spike of activity on the wave detector and it was strong. Strong enough to be lethal if I was caught in the cause, so I dropped the thing and ran out of the mansion and back here. The wave machine picks up brainwaves and interprets them as either ghost or living thing and it determines the strength. I would need that to test Luigi to give solid proof that it is him, but right now it's stuck in the mansion."

"I will get it!" Mario volunteered without hesitation.

"What?" E. Gadd said with confusion in his voice. "It's dangerous and you could possibly lose your life!"

"Dude, seriously? I literally fight a giant turtle monster that shoots flames, whilst jumping over pits of lava, just to save a princess and possibly get some cake on a regular basis, not to mention I have powerups that I can use that make fighting way too easy. And you think that a small brush with death now means any more than my everyday job? Not to mention that this is for the sake of my only little brother!"

"Point well made and taken. However, since the house showed no sign of ghosts until the very strong signal, I'm guessing that the threat, if it is indeed still there, is either one very powerful ghost or a group of ghosts that stick together that amounts to a lot of power. Unfortunately I'm modifying the poultergust, the machine that your brother used to save you, so you won't be able to use that. Also, the vacuum that I was using earlier is about useless in anything other than sucking up smoke, so you would do no good to yourself by using that. So this might be a slightly suicidal mission where you have to be as fast as possible before the force that is possibly there hunts you down."

"This is starting to sound like avoiding the Ultimate Chimera in MOTHER 3, but I'll do it!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but all help I can offer you is a flashlight, as it's probably dark now," And with that, the professor quickly grabbed a flashlight and handed it to Mario. "This flashlight has a long battery life, so it won't die on you in there. Unfortunately, that's all there is to this flashlight as far as special abilities go. Also, one more thing. This is one of those few situations in life where there actually is no shame in bailing. If you're in serious danger, get out of there immediately. You could easily try again during the daylight, and nobody is going to get hurt if you run. Just remember that sometimes you need to run away."

"You got it, and I will leave at once!" Mario said as he picked up Luigi and started to march towards the ladder.

"I'll just stay here and examine the blood samples to see what I can find. The mansion is just north of the bunker. Good luck!" cried the professor after Mario as he began the ascent of the ladder.

It wasn't long before both brothers were back outside again, the air having turned dark as they were inside, the crispness of the air causing vapor to appear from the breathing of both brothers, despite it being summer. Mario began to march on north of the bunker and within five minutes came across a stunning sight. A giant mansion lay in front of both of the brothers, the paint casting off a green eerie glow in the pale moonlight. Mario approached the front gate, opening it with a squeal as the seemingly aged hinges protested their use.

"I don't know what it is about supernatural beings and creating mansions," Mario started off to lighten the mood as he grabbed out the flashlight as he approached the building. "Wouldn't it be more practical to create something smaller, not to mention not waste all that money or resources on getting treasure as bait. But hey, that's just my two cents."

Mario had almost reached the front entrance when he paused in his tracks and cringed a little. "Darn it!" he spat. "I forgot to ask the professor where he left the machine. But no matter, we'll just look for it and pick up treasure along the way."

With that, Mario continued up to the front entrance and opened the giant oak door, the wood giving out a healthy creak as Mario pushed on it. Mario slowly entered the front room, closing the door behind him as he went and switching on the flashlight. Mario shone the flashlight around the room. Much to Luigi's surprise, the room looked a lot like the entry room from the mansion he saved Mario in. Mario walked forward and began to climb the stairs, the stairs making creepy noises just like everything else in the house. Luigi remembered the little tune he whistled while looking for Mario that E. Gadd had taught him so he wasn't in total silence and could feel some comfort. Luigi began to coo the melody, surprised that he could hold a note pretty well.

((To the tune of the Luigi's mansion main theme))

 _Sometimes things are insa-ane_

 _They can't always be expla-ained_

 _But I will remember you-ou_

 _Because with you, I just can't lose_

 _I gotta move if I wanna pro-ove_

 _But know that I will always fight for you_

Mario smiled at the fox kit making musical noises and couldn't help but join in with his whistling.

As the brothers moved further along the second floor, one thing became apparent to Luigi: the mansion was the exact same as the one that he saved Mario from. This unnerved Luigi, but it wasn't like he could tell Mario, and Mario never walked through the mansion enough himself to tell. The two searched room after room, finding nothing, not even ghosts. Luigi was starting to get suspicious. This had to be a trap of some sort; it was just too quiet and it was all very suspicious. Suddenly, Mario decided to go up to the attic level, but that wasn't what was starting to scare Luigi: what was scaring him was the fact that Mario was heading towards the replica of the room Luigi was attacked in.

' _Its alright. Its okay. Its probably empty,'_ thought Luigi to himself as he tried to comfort himself as they got closer and closer to that accursed room. Suddenly, a noise that Luigi somehow knew wasn't in the human hearing range, began to ring through the air. It sounded like… demonic laughter. A memory flashed in front of Luigi's eyes. He was in that room with the ghosts that hurt him. They were laughing exactly like that, and they were mocking him now. Luigi had to stop Mario from going in there, otherwise the ghosts would get them both. That must have been what the professor picked up on the wave machine.

Luigi started to whimper wildly and try to crawl out of Mario's arms, which only caused him to shush Luigi and continue forward towards their doom, blind. Now there are certain times in life where drastic situations require drastic measures. Luigi knew this was one of those times and he did what he had to in order to save them both. Luigi leapt from Mario's arms and landed on the floor and did what he never though he would do. He bit Mario's leg. Luigi forgot how sharp his teeth were and bit harder than he wanted to and he tasted blood. He didn't mean to bite that hard. Either way, Luigi had to carry this action through to save both of them. Luigi quickly jumped up and snatched the flashlight from Mario's hand as he started to wince from the pain of the bite. Luigi ran off as fast as his little legs could carry him, Mario's howls of pain carrying far into the halls. Luigi didn't pay attention, but continued to run, the shadows chasing and closing in behind him.

 _The first true blooded cliff hanger! I had a lot of time after posting the last chapter and decided to buckle down and get as much of this done as possible. I also got this done due to the fact that I'm going to be busy this weekend and I decided that I'll just get everything done now. But either way, tell me what you think of the story so far! Don't be shy! I'm not going to track you down from wherever you are reading this and bite you! Things are picking up a little and the story is about to truly begin. I'm also going to put on your radar that in about one or two chapters from now that I'm going to have a chapter that I'm going to put a "T" rating on for just that chapter. I'm just going to do it for the chapter due to violence and not to mention that throughout this story that violence hasn't been prominent and also not to mention that I'm keeping this story clean of vulgar language. So if you can not stand violence, just skip the chapter that I will give a T rating on and if you so please, PM me and I'll tell you what you missed. But I don't think people care that much, so hopefully, no worries. Please continue to review and I also really enjoy seeing speculation on what perhaps is going to happen next. Also, the room that Luigi got attacked in, I don't really have a place for on the map, if you know what I mean. As in, I don't have an exact location of where it would be in the attic. The ending of this chapter may of gone a little fast, but that was just because I was trying to get it done. Either way, please keep reviewing and giving me your input. Also, I really enjoyed the Chimera part of MOTHER 3, and its one of my favorite parts of the game. If you haven't heard of MOTHER 3 before, check it out. As a fairly unrelated side note, I got to hear the author N. D. Wilson speak (Author of "notes from the tilt awhirl" and the "outlaws in time" series) and I got his autograph! I asked him for advice on writing and he told me "Just keep writing! Your work may be bad at first, but if you keep on going, it'll improve!", so that really gave me a boost. I really have nothing other to say, then that I tried to get E. Gadd's character down, but I probably didn't get it spot on. But I really have nothing else to say, so until next time, Norm out. And remember that a toaster doesn't make a good substitute for a rubber ducky!_


	9. Chapter 9: I'm Giving Up On You

_The Whitesmith is back! It's time to continue on that cliffhanger that I left off with in the last chapter! But first, the all important author's note. It was noted that Mario and Luigi aren't identical twins, so their DNA isn't the same. I know that they're fraternal twins and their DNA is different, but the logic I was using was that Mario and Luigi still have a very strong resemblance and that since they're family that the DNA would be close enough to work off of. And to clarify, this story takes place before Dark Moon, as probably Luigi wouldn't go dashing into another mansion head on while he's still suffering PTSD from the last mansion, no matter how much he loves his brother. I'm under the assumption that most everyone reading this hates spiders. Now imagine there's a long alleyway filled to the brim with black widow spiders and their webs coat the walls and path in front of you thoroughly. Now imagine that a significant other is at the other end of the alley yelling for you, but you're deathly afraid of spiders. Chances are, unless you've got one heck of a will, you wouldn't be able to do the black widow death run unless you've at least lessened the fear somewhat. That's why Dark Moon hasn't happened yet in this story. Also, one thing I forgot to mention was that the Wii U and 3DS do exist in the Mushroom Kingdom, but Mario and Luigi aren't videogame characters. Nintendo exists, but completely independent of Mario and Luigi and they have nothing to do with each other. Who is Nintendo's mascot then? The answer is that it doesn't matter, but if Nintendo did need a mascot in this story, chances are I'd probably make it Sonic. That also brings up the issue of technology in the Mushroom Kingdom. I've always felt when playing the more storyline based Mario games that advanced technology exists, but for the most part nobody uses it/needs it, but the technology such as phones and TV still exist. Right now "I'm Not Him" is being written and should be up sometime soon within the next two weeks. Also to Christina who left a note in the reviews about knowing when I'm sleeping and when I'm awake, etc.: I know where you live. Did you know that I have actually learned how to pick a lock and that I can do it in about 4 seconds? Also, you look pretty peaceful when you sleep at night. It would be such a shame if something horrible happened like your neck snapping. Your move, Christina. (side note: that actually is my friend Christina and not some random commenter who was impersonating her)_

 _So that wraps up this author's note. Without further ado, Chapter 9 ladies and gentlemen._

Chapter 9: I'm Giving Up On You

The sun shone through the barred windows of the laboratory in Bowser Castle, reflecting its light through many tubes of curiously colored and purposed liquids and creating a rainbow of colors on the wall that would make a famous artist jealous. Contained within this quaint little lab's cobblestone walls was a magikoopa brewing up a potion for his devious purposes in a fitting black cauldron. A sudden pop ricocheted off the walls and the magikoopa in all his excitement grabbed a vial and filled it up with a sickly green colored liquid and held it over his head, the sun beams playing with the green and coloring the entire wall behind it a dazzling green.

"I've done it! I finally did it! Despite lacking proper materials I did it!" cried Kamek with overwhelming joy "I've created the perfect salad dressing!"

Kamek poured the vial all over a waiting plate of salad in front of him and dove into it, savoring every single bite.

"Okay, now that the more important thing is over with, time to work on the animal serum," said Kamek as he grabbed the almost finished vial of the serum he had slaved over before realizing how inadequate his salad dressing was and abandoning the project for a few hours in order to advance science where it needed it. Kamek mixed together a few more liquids and added a single adult super leaf to the concoction.

"This may be somewhat inadequate, but it should work," muttered Kamek to himself as he mixed together the contents of the vial. "It may be slower acting and the effects somewhat different, however I should get the wanted results in that nincompoop plumber as long as he ingests it. My eyes on the ground said that the two were heading to the nutty professor's to get green boy fixed, so all I have to do is get this stuff into his food and make sure that the little loser doesn't eat it again," said Kamek out loud conveniently, not knowing that the omnipotent presence was recording each convenient word Kamek said in order for people on the internet to read everything that happened… but anyways, Kamek swiftly corked up the vial, intent on avoiding failure this time and swiftly rode off on his broom to the greatest threat of the dark lands: a chubby 24 year old man who still hasn't made it to first base with the princess despite saving her hundreds of times.

Luigi ran as fast as he could, hoping and praying that his plan to get his brother away from the severe danger would work. Mario's blood still tasted metallic in Luigi's mouth and brought feelings of regret upon him, Luigi knowing full well that there was going to no explanation that could possibly assuage Mario's anger that would most likely be directed at Luigi for biting him. Luigi's plan was simple: if Mario didn't have light, he wouldn't explore the rooms. If he didn't explore the rooms, he wouldn't encounter the crazy satanic psycho ghosts that were out for Mario's blood and probably had questionable music choices to top it all off.

The light flashing upon the walls made Luigi feel disoriented and separated from reality, the light illuminating the wall for a brief second like a picture, then disappearing to darkness as the flashlight swung from the little rope it was attached to, dangling from Luigi's clenched jaws. Luigi was so disoriented that he didn't see the staircase coming up to him fast, and didn't realize it was in front of him until he was tumbling head over paws onto the landing. He was too tired to yip and felt terrible about what he did. There was probably a better way to have gotten Mario away from that room rather than biting him.

" _I could have totally just taken the flash light without biting him!_ " Luigi whimpered softly, regretting his heat of the moment decision, " _What if Mario is right? What if I truly am not human inside anymore? What if all the humanity I think I'm experiencing is an illusion?_ "

A playful growl interrupted Luigi from his deep and sorrowful lament. What stood in front of him was a glowing ghost dog, smaller than the one that he had fought when he rescued Mario. It was seemingly only a puppy and a playful one at that as it gave a soft white glow that covered the staircase walls. In its mouth was a long stick shaped object and on that object was the familiar E. Gadd stamp that indicated that he had made it. That must have been the wave machine.

Although the ghost puppy obviously didn't have bad or malicious intentions and was rather friendly, Luigi still felt the fur just about the base of his tail bristle in fear.

" _Play with me!_ " the ghost puppy yapped as it eagerly jumped around in circles around the still frightened Luigi.

" _Wait… I can understand you?_ " Luigi asked, his sudden realization and curiosity overriding his fear.

" _Well of course, silly! Why wouldn't you?_ "

" _Well I…,"_ Luigi paused a moment, realizing how hard and confusing it would be to explain his predicament to a small ghost puppy he had just met, and realized it would be better to just cut the explanation entirely.

" _No reason, I guess. So what's the game?_ " asked Luigi.

" _It's simple! Try to get the bone from me!_ " cried the polterpup (as Luigi decided to call him) as he began to rush off, leaving a trail of glowing paw prints that evaporated after a few seconds. Luigi quickly scrabbled to his paws and sprinted after the polterpup.

" _Hey! That's no fair!_ " yipped Luigi as he ran after his new friend, " _You got a head start!_ "

The polterpup slowed down a little, allowing Luigi to catch up a little before turning around and running backwards while sticking his tongue out from underneath the machine.

" _Well you gotta catch me first!_ " taunted the polterpup.

" _Oh, it's on!_ " growled Luigi playfully as he picked up his pace, both puppies yapping ecstatically as they continued their joyful game.

The game continued on for a good five more minutes, Luigi having so much fun doing the taunting and playing that he forgot about all of his fear pains and troubles. Unfortunately, as all good things do, it had to come to an end eventually. The two came skittering to a halt in a hallway on the first floor, both panting and happy.

" _Wow that was fun!_ " polterpup barked, " _I live in a mansion in Evershade valley and none of the other ghosts are much fun. There was nobody else like me, much less anyone who could understand dog, and I decided to come here for a bit to explore. I'm so glad I met you! You're the first friend I ever had. Even when I was experiencing what the other ghosts called 'life' nobody wanted me. I never had a friend, even up until the accident…_ "

" _Well I'm glad I met you too,_ " cooed Luigi happily, " _To be perfectly honest, I've never really had many friends before either. I still barely have any. I wish we could have spent more time together, but I understand that you have to go home. I hope to see you again some day!_ "

The polterpup nuzzled the machine over to Luigi. " _Before I go, I want you to have this as a token of our friendship. Don't forget me!_ "

The two fast friends gave each other a nuzzle to the side of the face (dog equivalent of a hug) before the polterpup ran off, leaving his trail of paw prints as he disappeared through a wall, the glowing paw prints slowly fading and reminding Luigi that he lost his flashlight and never picked it up. As the light slowly faded until it was no more, Luigi realized he could still see! Not as distinctly as when he was looking at something, but he could still see the outlines of objects pretty darn well. Luigi looked down at the wave machine, the token of friendship, and contemplated his fairly lonely life and realized what he was missing out on by always being the wall flower and not socializing much. It was then and there that Luigi vowed to make more of an effort of trying to socialize and trying to make friends.

Luigi was interrupted from his deep philosophical thought train by an eerie creaking noise. Luigi remembered where he was and his fear came back ten fold. Luigi looked down at the outline of the wave machine and knew that this was the ticket to his future and that he was going to protect it with his life, even if the force that was going to come up against him probably wouldn't be to intimidated or deterred by a tiny yapping fox kit. Luigi started making a growling noise deep from the back of his throat, his fur all over starting to bristle as he showed his sharp teeth. What Luigi didn't see was the small grey ring in his iris expanding and completely taking over the blue, rendering his eyes a cold and heartless silver.

Luigi made out in the distance of the hall a blob lurching forward towards him, its gait conveying a type of limp, as if it had come from the very depths of the earth and it was coming to take Luigi with it. Luigi watched as the shape grew closer and he could hear a slight moaning noise it made. Luigi prepared for the pounce and was ready to take the blood of the enemy that wanted to take away his future. As the shape was within three yards Luigi pounced, filled with fear and determination at the same time. Suddenly as he was in mid glide, an appendage shot out of the blob and snatched Luigi out of the air. Luigi tried to bite his attacker, yet a hand from the beast had grabbed on the bottom half of Luigi's jaw before he could do anything and Luigi found he couldn't bite down. ((fun fact: if you're ever about to be attacked by a dog, don't run or it will chase you, but grab the bottom half of their mouth. The dog's muscles aren't built to let them close their mouth if you're holding them like that. Just saying))

With the free hand of the beast, Luigi felt a rope-like cloth being wrapped around his muzzle and pulled tight so he couldn't open his mouth. Luigi kicked his tiny little legs and growled up a storm to where if it were Pokemon the opponent wouldn't have any attack left. Unfortunately this wasn't Pokemon and Luigi was now helplessly trapped in the arms of the beast that Luigi still couldn't fully see. A sudden blinding light illuminated Luigi's sight, rendering him temporarily blind for a few seconds as a familiar voice filled the air.

"I gotcha now, you little imp," Mario's voice said as Luigi regained his sight and got a glimpse of Mario's angry looking face. As Mario looked into Luigi's eyes and saw the raw silver glint back at him, he couldn't help but flinch slightly as Luigi almost never was mad enough (or rather feeling negative enough) to get silver eyes, but Mario quickly gained his angry composure back "You can't bite me now. I don't know what was going through your furry little mind if anything was going on in there at all when you did that, but that bite hurts and makes it hard to walk. You probably hit a nerve or something. Also, why the heck were you running around the mansion yipping like a…"

Mario was about to continue his rant, but he noticed the object on the ground with the E. Gadd seal on it. Mario recognized the object as the one the duo needed and picked it up and found his way to the door and left while holding Luigi in an arm stiffly as he made his way back to the bunker. Luigi whimpered sadly as the moon bathed the two in its light, Luigi's eyes slowly making their transition back to sparkling sapphire. Luigi looked up at Mario's face, cursing his muzzle for blocking the full view of his older brother's face, which hadn't really mattered to Luigi up to this point, but Luigi felt as if he only needed one full look at his brother's face to understand what he was feeling.

Luigi remembered when Daisy was holding him right after he transformed and how when he tilted his head when looking at her how he managed to see her entire face and see the alarm on it (though that didn't matter to Luigi at the time either due to it already being clear to Luigi at the moment that she was panicking). Luigi tilted his head again to look at Mario's face and was surprised when it seemed that an entire new world had opened up to him. When he looked at Mario's face, he could understand the emotions going through his brother with a new type of clarity that almost redefined the word clarity. What mainly shocked Luigi, though, was that the main emotion that Mario was feeling wasn't anger, but an overwhelming amount of sadness. Luigi would have licked Mario to let him know that he cared, but Luigi knew he couldn't do it because he caused the problem and his mouth was tied shut by what Luigi recognized as a piece of fabric ripped off the sleeve of Mario's shirt.

The bunker soon came into view and Mario entered it without a word, not saying anything or really acknowledging Luigi's existence, but rather seemed cold and off on his own distant planet. The brothers entered the bunker and Mario walked up to E. Gadd, who had burnt another pizza while the two were away, and gave him the machine. It only took the professor about 0.626 seconds to realize that something was wrong and he instantly asked what the issue was.

"Luigi went crazy in the mansion and bit me," Mario said almost zombie-like as he set Luigi on the ground and lifted up his pant-leg to reveal a small, but nasty looking gash that was still bleeding a little, "So I tied shut Luigi's muzzle with a piece I had ripped off the sleeve of my shirt and managed to find your machine, though the screen is broken which I presume will show data results, so I'm not sure what to do about that."

"Oh my!" cried E. Gadd in shock as he beheld the bite mark, "I'll get you fixed up! Go sit on that chair over there."

E. Gadd quickly picked up Luigi as he ran into the other room and started getting old and dusty looking gauze bandage packs, which Luigi realized with a jump were the exact same bandages he used on Luigi when he got attacked. Luigi involuntarily flinched, which didn't go unnoticed by E. Gadd as the professor picked up Luigi to where they were directly staring at each other.

"I know you recognize these, Luigi," the old professor started, "And I still hold onto my firm belief that it is still you. During the short night that I got to get to know you, I have learned that you typically don't go gallivanting off doing stupid things without a good reason. I don't know your reason for doing that to Mario, but I still have complete trust in you. It's just Mario you need to worry about. Try to lay low for a bit, alright?"

Luigi nodded his head and E. Gadd resumed holding Luigi by carefully clutching him to his chest. Luigi couldn't help but find some comfort in at least one person's steadfast belief in him. The professor exited the room he got the bandages from and began patching up Mario's leg, which caused lots of grunts and groans from Mario as the old man did a thorough bandaging.

"I'm truly sorry for this, lad," said E. Gadd as he lifted up for Mario to see the dreaded brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, in which Mario flinched at, "I'd be lying if I said this wasn't going to hurt a lot."

As the deed was done a loud screaming echoed throughout the kingdom, startling Peach as she was baking a cake. I guess Luigi wasn't the only talented screamer in the family. Mario gave the professor a glare that seemed to very clearly say "you're dead", but the professor quickly started talking to avoid his doom at the somewhat hot headed older of two brothers.

"I also managed to get some results on Luigi. He was shedding a lot, so I managed to get many fine DNA samples from him," the professor stated as he lifted Luigi up from his lab coat to reveal multiple little tufts of fluff covering him. Mario looked down and noticed that he was covered in his brother's fur too, which resulted in a smile and a shake of the head, "So I managed to get some DNA from it, and although I didn't have time to do an in depth study of how much his DNA has changed, I did manage to run it through a database of various animal DNA to see if it matched anything. Oddly enough it didn't match anything, not even fox, but I do have a suspicion of what he is. This should see if my suspicions are correct."

The professor placed Luigi on the ground and extended one of his pinky fingers in the air for Mario to view. E. Gadd then very slowly and very gently moved his pinky finger until it was very lightly poking an area on the base of Luigi's tail. Although it wasn't much pressure, Luigi felt as if his entire backside had caught on fire and involuntarily leaped in the air and let out a muffled yip from behind his rope tied muzzle. After he landed, Luigi ran into the nearest corner, to which the professor followed behind with surprising speed for an old man, and picked Luigi up again.

"Yep, that confirms it for me. He's a kitsune," the professor, proud of his deduction skills, held Luigi up above his head.

"What's a kitsune and why did he react that way to your touch?" Mario asked, confusion being the most prominent thing on his face.

"Well, to start off, a kitsune is a more magical creature that was considered to be extinct or non-existent. Kitsunes are Japanese foxes that have nine tails and have fairly magical qualities and abilities. The reason that Luigi reacted that way when I lightly touched him in that specific spot was because that was where he's growing his second tail and like when a human baby is teething, it doesn't feel good. I would call this 'tailing', but that sounds stupid. This also segues into my next point, which is that I also managed to quickly examine his blood sample with the limited time I had, and I managed to find some foreign contaminant. So most likely this all happened to Luigi because he ingested something or something got into his blood stream, rather than this all being the result of a spell. And the stuff is still flowing in his blood stream."

"So does that mean if we somehow managed to remove all the substance from his blood stream that he'll change back?"

"No, unfortunately. The stuff still going around in his blood is because of him getting such a high dose of it to where there's lots of excess still going around in his blood stream. This also brings up the next issue of the substance itself. I'm unable to identify it and unlike the kitsune issue, I don't have a single hunch of what it is. However, I was able to figure out that this substance is a well made mixture of magic and science. What that means is that it was skillfully made, as mixing magic and science together is one of those 'no no's that typically ends in mass disaster, but if done right, mixing magic and science is a nearly unbeatable combo."

Mario's face seemed to lose all traces of hope that it had to it, "So you're saying that Luigi is stuck this way permanently, aren't you?"

"Oh no no no, my boy! I'm just putting it out there that whatever did this to Luigi is nearly unbeatable, however it's not impossible! What do you think catching ghosts is? It's mixing magic and science! Luigi himself proved that it's possible to mix magic and science successfully. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is going to be a long and hard process figuring out what to do, but it's possible and I'm going to do it, gosh darnit! It's just going to take some time. So how about we start the process with the wave machine? Although the screen is broken, I can still take down data and the machine will remember it until the screen gets fixed, which will take a few days. So lets get started, shall we?"

Mario was clearly reassured from E. Gadd's pep talk and watched with a bit of relief as the professor slowly waved the stick all around Luigi to collect the data. Once the professor was finished, he handed Luigi back to Mario, who was still slightly ticked at Luigi for biting him, but Mario had cooled down a little and held Luigi in a position comfortable enough for him to nap in. E. Gadd looked down at the now napping Luigi and tittered a little.

"I tell you, the shenanigans Luigi always seems to get himself into," the professor said, "Also, one more thing I forgot to tell you is that the age doesn't match up."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Well, as a bit of context, kitsunes live a very long time; far longer than any human can even hope to live. Adults have nine tails and the kids are still growing them until they reach teenage years, and childhood lasts about 100 years, believe it or not. Well anyways, Luigi still has the newborn fluff, which lasts about the first 4 years of development before still retaining the unbelievable softness, but smoothening out to create a sleeker appearance. So Luigi is 24, but if he was right now he should have about 2- 3 tails right now, but he doesn't, so that leads me to believe that whatever Luigi ingested also de-aged him a little bit. Luigi at this point is a four year old kitsune kit, though it wouldn't be the biggest crime in the universe to continue to refer to him as a fox kit."

"So what does that mean?"

"Nothing other than if we were to forcefully make him human again, he would have to grow up all over again from four years old up. I'm assuming that none of Luigi's memories were lost and that he still is himself, but we need the machine to confirm that. Moreover, if we did find a way to make Luigi human again as he is, there's no guarantee that if he comes back as a kid that he'll continue to retain his memories. So what I'm trying to say here is that we need to be extra careful when trying to fix him. Also, I'd never want to put someone through puberty twice. But one thing still perplexes me."

"What is that?"

"He is way too small. What I mean by that is that Luigi isn't the right size for his age is a good two times smaller than he should be at this age. His tail seems to be the only thing that is the right size, but other than that, despite being 4 years old he's about the size of a one year old."

Mario let out a hearty laugh that startled poor Luigi from his nap.

"Well, as you can see, I'm pretty short at only 5'3" and Luigi is, or rather WAS, pretty tall at a whopping 6'5". But the funny thing is that it wasn't always that way. In fact, it used to be quite the opposite. I was actually the tall one, or at least about the average height of everyone else during our school years, while Luigi was actually very short in comparison to everyone else, almost always being a good foot or two shorter than everyone else. Everyone in the family, even the doctor, thought he was going to pretty much stay a midget throughout his life, but his soft younger looks that he still kind of had when he was a human adult always made him look younger too. In high school, the especially mean people would always tell Luigi to go back to elementary school where he belonged. This was before Luigi was scared of everything and he just shook it off for the most part. But it was about halfway through high school when I finished growing that he hit the hardest growth spurt of all time and far surpassed anyone in school with his height. So he's probably so small because when he was a child he was really small too."

"I see," said E. Gadd nodding his head "Also, would you like me to cook some pasta for you before you take your long journey back to Toad Town?"

Mario eagerly nodded his head yes and rushed over to the dinner table after putting Luigi down, promising to feed him at home.

The cool night breeze ruffled Kamek's robes as he drew closer to the location of the bunker, the corked vial in his robe and swishing around the precious liquid that would be key to his victory. It wasn't long before the magikoopa sat outside of the bunker and watched as the two brothers came back from the mansion holding the key to fixing Luigi.

' _They're never going to figure out how to fix him_ ' thought Kamek smugly to himself as he carefully flew into the door after the two, after of course making himself invisible. Kamek followed them into the basement, which impressed Kamek as a good location for a lab that even he himself had to admit was quality. Kamek listened to the two blabber on about Luigi as he sat back floating on his broomstick reading the latest issue of "Old Men and Gold Chains monthly" (it was a good issue), to which he put a spell on to where only he could see it, waiting for a time just right to get the other brother. Suddenly, Kamek perked up when he heard the crazy old man offer Mario some pasta. Luigi was promptly put on the floor, his muzzle tied shut oddly enough, to which he lifted his nose up in the air and began sniffing and to Kamek's alarm, Luigi's gaze rested directly on him. Kamek may not have been visible, but Luigi sure as heck could smell him.

Luckily, Luigi's muzzle was tied shut and he could do nothing but glare at the space in which Kamek was hovering. A plate of pasta and glass of water was grabbed by E. Gadd and set out in front of Mario, to which the chubby plumber started eating like there was no tomorrow. Kamek now knew why no matter how much Mario exercised that he seemed to be permanently chubby. Suddenly, Mario looked away to talk to E. Gadd for a minute and Kamek took his chance, and just like before, he silently uncorked the liquid and added it to Mario's water, ready for his success that was to come as soon as Mario drank it. This didn't go unnoticed to Luigi as he saw the weird stream of liquid pouring out of thin air and into Mario's drink. Luigi had to stop Mario from drinking that and started growling as loud as he could. Both E. Gadd and Mario stared at the tiny fox wondering what to make of that, both oblivious as to Kamek, while Kamek was silently snickering at himself at how much trouble little Luigi was going to get in by the time he was done.

Mario and the professor eventually dismissed Luigi's growling and as Mario picked up his water glass to take a sip, the fireworks began. In one smooth movement, Luigi leapt through the air and broke free of the fabric tied around his muzzle and knocked the water glass out of Mario's hands, while splashing the tainted water all over Mario and the floor. Luigi then landed and started barking rapidly. To say Mario looked ticked was an understatement and he promptly grabbed Luigi and started to go towards the door while telling the professor he had to go. Kamek heard the professor desperately say he'd call Mario with the results, but Mario gave no response and the short and chubby man kept walking. Kamek would have let out a guffaw of glee, however his potion was spilled and Mario didn't point blank ingest it, so there was no telling what was going to happen. Kamek heard the bunker door close and teleported away as soon as the professor wasn't looking.

E. Gadd watched as Mario marched out the door with Luigi and he knew that whatever was going to happen next to Luigi wasn't going to be pleasant. The professor also knew that Luigi must have saw something neither of them did and was trying to act. Animals always did have a sharper sense for when something was amiss. Either way, the professor was going to test that water, so he grabbed out some latex gloves and cleaned up the water mess with a rag carefully so he had some water to test.

"May God help you, Luigi," the professor muttered to himself as he knew things were about to get worse ten fold for the little fox.

 _And that concludes this chapter that took forever to write. Yes, the polterpup is the one from dark moon. Another thing is that I consider the planet the Mushroom Kingdom is on in a different galaxy than Earth, but the warp pipe or something that Mario and Luigi found to get there warped them. Also, the next chapter is going to be the T rated one with the increased violence. I'd love to hear your speculation on what is going to happen next! This is the longest chapter I have written yet and I'm somewhat proud. I'm still trying to fix all grammatical errors, but when I come through after this is finished and make the little edits here and there, all the mistakes that you have pointed out in the reviews are going to help, so please keep doing so! The only mistakes I wouldn't need to have pointed out are the incoherent sentences, because believe me, I caught those and a little too late too. I was really rushing to get this sucker done today before Easter. God, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow because I go to a church that's 30 minutes away from where I live and that's normally okay since service is at 9 and I just have to start going at about 8:15 so I have time before service so I can get coffee so I don't fall asleep during service (why do they make those chairs so comfy?). So anyways, tomorrow is a service at 6:30 am and that means I have to get up way earlier than I like, considering I'm a major night owl and have to get on the road before 6. Urgh, if there wasn't food being served there along with coffee, I don't know what I'd do! That's just a little window into my life. To all you people who don't go to church on Sundays, you're lucky! Just imagine me tomorrow in the pews looking incredibly dead to the world with bags under my eyes. So happy egg hunting, if that is your thing, tomorrow! Or at least go to a nearby Walgreens or something and get all the discount candy that was put on sale after Easter ends. That, I'd recommend._

 _When I read fanfiction, I really like it when I learn little things when I read it. What I mean by this is that when the author puts in something educational in the reading. I like this because knowledge is power and as long as it's done in a manner like game theory where it's fun, then I remember and enjoy learning. So if knowledge is power, then the internet is ruling us all and there's no escape! Muahahahahahahhahahahaha! Anyways, if you're ever attacked by a dog and take my advice on how to stop it, then you can tell all your family and friends that you learned how to do that from fanfiction. Yay for fanfiction! Well, that concludes this very long and boring author's note, so Norm is out._

 _And remember to set plenty of bear traps in empty fields tonight because the Easter bunny is going to be roaming about putting down eggs filled with manufactured poison to slowly kill our children in the form of chocolate. He's a maniac, I tell you!_


	10. Chapter 10: Blood Is Thicker Than Water

**WARNING:A "T" rating is on this chapter for violence and disturbing themes (heck, the amount of violence is going to be pushing the T rating). Just putting this out there for any kids (or adults) who might be reading this and really hate violence or don't think they can handle torture parts in stories (In which I respect you for, which is why I'm making this warning in the first place). If you want to skip this chapter, you can PM me and I'll personally tell you what you missed. After this chapter, the rating will return to normal.**

 _Norman Whitesmith here and back from Easter. I almost lost a few limbs to the Easter Bunny's egg-splosives, but I managed to make it through alive and only with a few scratches. I'll explain again that the T rating only applies to this chapter because as I explained before, the rest of the story has minor violence and is clear of vulgar language, so I felt that it would be appropriate that I only put a T warning on this chapter instead of changing the rest of the story to T. This chapter is going to be way darker than previous chapters due to torture, but I feel that it's a part of the story that needs to be done. Also, this is probably the darkest the story will get in its run and the story is going to lighten up a lot after this. Please keep reviewing, as it really helps a lot to know that other people think I'm doing alright in writing this. Also, there was a slight complaint about how I was explaining a lot last chapter and how it could be hard to understand. I'd like to apologize and say that I tried my best to make it clear and interesting. I'll try to curtail the explanations a bit next time. One thing I do value in making this is the comedy. I'm trying to keep it light-hearted and make it something nice to read as well as fairly easy to read. The type of humor I try to use is stuff that kind of seems out of place (e.g. the "We Are Number One" doorbell), yet isn't entirely out of mood and can be funny. I'm trying to make the humor somewhat smart and self-aware, kind of like how the Animaniacs were (If you don't know what that cartoon is, you're way too young! Get your butt on a new tab on the internet and look it up now!), yet I'm not trying to copy anything either and am trying to keep this story fairly original (though as you who have read past chapters know, this story got its concept from a different story in a way) and enjoyable. I have nothing else to say, so without further ado, here's Chapter 10._

Chapter 10: Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Mist swirled through a dense wood that spread hundreds of miles from the east to the west, the tiny droplets of water suspended in weightlessness becoming the toy to the winds, borrowing movement from anything living near by that dared to come outside in such a dense early morning fog. A large whoosh caused the mist nearby to do the electric slide and create hypnotic swirls in the dense air. Two figures were making their way through the fog, hoping to find an exit from the swirling majesty. The two were a mismatched pair of a small fox kit that had worry plastered all over his face and a chubby 24 year old man with a very sour and grumpy look that seemed to penetrate the soul of whoever looked at him.

The man, who is the legendary hero of the Mushroom Kingdom named Mario, set the fox kit down on a nearby rock. The anxiety showing in the fox kit's face increased ten fold as he was set down.

"Luigi," Mario said, "If I should even call you that, that is. You aren't my brother. My brother would never do any of this to me, and I was stupid to hope that Luigi was still in there. I decided to do what Toadsworth suggested and let you go free. That way you can bite down on whatever you want and get prey yourself. It's better this way for both of us."

A single tear streaked Mario's face as he removed the collar from Luigi's neck and turned away and began to walk.

"You're free just as a wild animal should be," Mario said, not even trying to disguise his voice starting to crack with emotion, "If you follow me home, I will have no choice but to call animal control."

And with that, the mist swallowed Mario up, leaving Luigi alone on the rock with the forest of noises surrounding him. Luigi lay down on the rock, contemplating and lamenting about where he went wrong. Luigi sat up suddenly as a noise of something large echoed through the forest. He had to get out of there and fast before the thing caught up to him. Luigi was up on his paws and dashing through the woods as fast as he could, his sheer smallness actually assisting in helping him identify tree roots so he couldn't trip. Luigi's lungs started to burn as he continued to run at his death march pace, but he knew that he wasn't too far from Toad Town and had to keep running to reach safety.

Luigi kept running and eventually burst out of the woods like a bullet shot from a musket with too much gun powder. He was safe, but the entire area seemed to be deserted and devoid of life, the fog closing in on everything and seemingly trapping every toad in their home to enjoy time with their families. Luigi let out a mournful howl and started to walk towards the castle, in hopes that perhaps the princess could help him. Suddenly, pain shot up Luigi's spine as he was lifted into the air by his tail. An ugly face marred with claw mark scars entered Luigi's view and he cringed as he heard the familiar voice.

"Hello, fox boy," Waluigi snarled as he let out a sneeze, "You didn't think I would forget what you did to me, did you? I just thought I could take us over to my house and we could have us a little **chat**."

XxX

Mario rushed away through the fog away from the tiny fox kit that was supposed to be his brother, tears streaming down Mario's face and blurring his vision. Mario couldn't hold it in anymore and began to sob as he was running, tears mixing in with the mist. He was angry and feeling sour only minutes ago, but when he tried to release Luigi, all that disappeared and he only felt pain. Why, though? The fox made it clear that it was feral when it attacked him twice. Luigi would never do that and if it was questionable whether or not Luigi still had control over himself, this proved that Luigi was not still there, right? It was the good thing to do to let the fox live its life, right? Right?

Mario didn't even realize he had reached his home until he came to the front door, the family name "Mario" painted in large capital letters over the door and shining red through the fog. Mario emptily entered the front door and stood in the darkness of the small foyer of his house. Mario almost expected Luigi to run down the stairs excitedly and hug him tightly and ask how his adventures went. But Luigi was gone. If the fox was only a wild fox, then why did Mario feel so horrible about leaving it? Mario couldn't answer this for himself and trudged up the stairs, not realizing his legs were taking him to Luigi's room.

Mario stared at the green room that was devoid of life, and more importantly devoid of his little brother that he cherished, though Mario rarely told him that. Heck, he wasn't just his little brother, he was his twin brother. The one that was always with him and supporting him, from birth to adulthood. Mario flopped down on Luigi's bed dejectedly and noticed a small puff of Luigi's downy fur going into the air. A small puff that was halfway blonde halfway ebony brown landed on Mario's nose and he couldn't help but stare at it. The transformation must have started at home and have been a semi-slow process and this must have been a small tuft of hair that fell off Luigi's head before it completed its changes. What type of terror was Luigi going through when he must have inexplicably started changing?

Mario picked up the ruined clothing that got ripped while Luigi transformed from the floor and pulled out Luigi's hat from his overalls pocket and hugged it all close and let his tears flow freely. He shouldn't have let that fox kit go, regardless of whether it was Luigi or not. If the roles were switched and it was Mario this happened to, Luigi would have never let him go! Unfortunately the forest was too big and the fox kit had probably moved by now, so Mario knew there was no real hope of finding him anymore. A sudden ring of the telephone downstairs startled Mario from his thoughts. Regardless of how depressed he felt, Mario was still the Kingdom's hero and the phone call might be important, so he had to answer it. Mario folded Luigi's clothing quickly and precisely, leaving the hat on top of the stack like an emblem on a shrine, and rushed down the stairs.

Mario picked up the old landline phone.

"Hello?" Mario asked, forcing his voice to sound normal and without any previous emotion he was feeling

"Hello," E. Gadd's grainy voice came from the telephone, "I have something very important to tell you regarding Luigi!"

"First off, how did you get this number, and second, I released the fox into the wild. It's better that way."

"Well I got this number by dialing all numbers sequentially until I got… WAIT, YOU WHAT?!"

"I released it. A wild animal should be living in the wild."

"Oh geez, I don't know how to tell you this, but the fox was still Luigi and I've got proof. I still haven't fixed the wave machine to give you definite solid results on a graph or something, but I have something else. The entire spilling water situation rubbed me the wrong way and I felt as if something was extremely wrong, so I examined the water and you'd never believe what I found. I found a chemical substance similar to the one found in Luigi's blood stream in your water, though this one seemed a bit more artificial. Luigi must have seen something and acted in the best way he could with his inability to talk. I don't know what the bite in the mansion was about, but I have a feeling it was similar circumstances. I guess what I mean to say is that Luigi just freaking saved you from sharing his fate. I don't think a wild animal would have taken the actions Luigi did, so thus I think that it's pretty clear at this point that Luigi did retain his mind in the transformation."

Mario was speechless. All the puzzle pieces in his mind were falling into place, everything from Luigi's attempt to say his catch-phrase right after transforming, to Luigi seemingly responding appropriately to his talking and orders, to Luigi's weird behavior in the bunker to where it seemed like he was staring off into space, but reality was that he was probably staring at something unseen that he was somehow able to sense. All this pointed to one thing: Mario was the true animal and monster. Mario needed to find Luigi again and apologize, if nothing else. Since it was clear that this was Luigi, it would be logical that he would head into Toad Town, which luckily narrowed down his searching a bit from the gigantic forest. Mario slammed the phone down on the hook and ran out the door, determined to find his brother and try to make things right.

XxX

The sound of a whip cracking filled the air in a small broken down house that was crowded with garbage and on the outskirts of Toad Town where nobody dared to live due to the inhabitant of this house. A yowl of pain was heard soon after. Inside this Godforsaken house lived Waluigi the psychotic outcast who was never put in jail or prison due to a lack of evidence for his supposed crimes that everyone tried to accuse him of. It doesn't take much imagination to know who was on the receiving end of this pain. Luigi howled with pain, wishing so hard that he could put up some kind of fight, but he knew deep inside that any attempts to bite or as much as anything would probably result in the death of him. Waluigi had a malicious grin on his face from watching the fox's pain and seeing the bright red welts and blood seeping through and soiling his fur. Waluigi felt that this was more than fitting for his rival for disrespecting him, but suddenly Waluigi remembered something else he had.

Waluigi took out a rope and tied it around Luigi's neck a bit too tight to where it left him gasping desperately for enough air to stay awake. Waluigi tied him up to the leg of a chair in his living room and left to the crowded garage to grab something else. Waluigi grabbed what looked like a decaying corpse of a small animal and removed something from around the body's neck. And quickly went back into the living room where Luigi's vision had already went black due to lack of air and he was trying so hard to hold onto the remaining threads of consciousness. Waluigi roughly untied the ropes from Luigi's neck, finally allowing the precious air to once again reach Luigi's lungs, but that lasted only about a second as Waluigi picked up Luigi by his neck and quickly snapped around Luigi's neck what came off the rotting corpse just seconds ago.

"It's a shock collar," Waluigi spat, sending spit flecks flying into Luigi's face, but Luigi didn't care, he was already convulsing wildly in fear, "If you as much make a sound, you're going to get a good healthy shock. It used to belong to my dear puppy Buttercup, but she just wasn't good enough, so she didn't make it. But don't worry! As long as you are a good doggie, you'll be an even greater pet to me than Buttercup was!"

Luigi didn't want to be anybody's pet, but unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done to save himself. Luigi knew it was helpless as Waluigi let him down from the wall, but picked him up by the tail again and swung him by his side as he walked. Luigi let out a small yip in pain, but immediately regretted doing so as a painful shock wracked his small body and turned his vision black and white with pain. Waluigi continued on to the bathroom and slammed Luigi down on the counter, which unfortunately registered as a bark to the shock collar and it shocked Luigi again, this time leaving Luigi twitching uncontrollably after the electrical current shocked. Waluigi only laughed at this and pulled out some scissors from a drawer.

"We're going to make you a vewy pwetty doggie," Waluigi said with a maniacal laugh as he began to cut away at Luigi's fur, leaving uneven lengths and patches and some of the bare skin around the welts exposed, "Oh no, I think I see a flea crawling around your pelt! Don't worry, I'll get it."

Waluigi brought the sharp scissors above his head and brought the blades down hard on Luigi's back, right into the bleeding area where the welt is. Luigi let out a very loud howl of pain, to which the shock collar retaliated with a proportionally larger shock which made Luigi feel like it had almost fried him alive from the scent of burnt skin and fur from around his neck and his vision blurring and refusing to return back to normal.

"Oh no, I think I missed! Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

Waluigi kept stabbing and stabbing, Luigi in too much pain to make a noise as his blood splattered everything in sight and ran down his back, tinting his once luxurious and glossy fur a dark shade of scarlet. One stab in particular ignited Luigi's entire backside in pain and when it subsided, Luigi realized that he couldn't feel or move anything from just behind his front paws and back. Luigi could do nothing except watch as the scissors came down and brought a new geyser of blood with each stab. Luigi couldn't stop himself when he felt bile rise in his throat and he threw up all over the bathroom counter which got a very evil looking frown from Waluigi.

"Awww, the poor little doggie got throw up all over its muzzle. I'll fix that."

Waluigi luckily stopped stabbing with the scissors, but he moved his attention to Luigi's face and head. He started shaving off some of the fur on Luigi's face, not being careful and causing tiny pinpricks of blood to well up all over. Waluigi suddenly took a swipe with the scissors and Luigi barely had enough time to close his eyes before the sharp scissors slashed across his face and almost cut open his eye lids. Another swipe split open Luigi's nose and filled it with blood to where Luigi had to breathe by panting in order to avoid choking on his own blood.

Waluigi suddenly froze after sneezing fit and perked up "Supper time!" he cried out with sadistic glee and he picked up Luigi who was bleeding violently and was dead to the world from pain and blood loss. Waluigi didn't care and slapped Luigi down on the table with a dull thud, spraying a bit of blood all over the countertop.

Waluigi set down a bowl of liquid in front of Luigi and forced him to drink it down. It was clearly alcoholic and within minutes Luigi felt woozy and at least felt some relief from his pain. Unfortunately, Luigi was a bit too relaxed and couldn't control his muscles in his back area because he couldn't even feel them. Soon Luigi was lying in a large yellow puddle on the table to which Waluigi screamed at him for.

"You stupid dog!" Waluigi screeched, "You'll pay for that!"

Waluigi picked Luigi up by the tail, which he noticed was a lot more limp than it was before the bathroom, and he took Luigi to the door that lead to his basement and opened the door and flung Luigi down the stairs to the dark basement and closed it without a second thought. Luigi was barely conscious at this point and had a strong feeling he wasn't much longer for this world. A single weak beam of light poured out from a dusty window and Luigi got up on his front paws and dragged his body to it. He at least wanted to die in the light.

XxX- _Three day time skip_

Mario panted as he continued his run through Toad Town, looking for his lost little brother for the third consecutive day, not even really stopping except for a few bites to eat at home just so he had enough energy to continue the desperate search. It was beginning to take its toll on Mario as he had heavy dark bags under his eyes and he had been suffering heavy inexplicable headaches that rattled his skull. The few times Mario had looked in the mirror in between searching, he had notices that seemingly small stripes of his hair began to turn black, like his moustache was. Mario, however, had no time to think because he needed to find Luigi while there at least was hope of some degree for finding him. Right now there was only one area left where he didn't explore yet, which was the secluded area where Waluigi, the madman, lived.

Although Luigi would never go there in his right mind, Mario knew he at least needed to look, as unlikely as it seemed that he would be there. Mario took off sprinting towards the area and reached it in record time. There was not even a sign of life except for the lights on in Waluigi's home. There was no way that Waluigi would help, even if Mario asked, so Mario turned away, dejected that he could possibly never find his brother and the fact that Luigi may just plain be gone. Mario looped around behind Waluigi's house, deciding to perhaps search the small open field that lay behind his home, not realizing he was passing a small dusty window to the basement.

X

Luigi knew his end was near. He had survived nearly three days with way too much blood loss, no food, and no water. There was no way he was going to survive much longer and Luigi didn't even know why he was still alive. It would have been much kinder for him to have just died in the mansion. Luigi's vision was still blurry and he refused to leave his precious spot of light on the floor, as Waluigi seemingly forgot about him and left him alone. Luigi was ready to die and wanted to get it over with. He had no family as of late, everyone seemingly wanted him gone, and quite frankly, Luigi was just plain tired. Darkness started closing in on Luigi's vision, indicating that his time had come, but suddenly something stood out to him. Ever since Waluigi slashed open his nose, Luigi had problems smelling anything, but something stood out upon the air. It was the scent of Mario's cologne, faint, but it had to be him. Luigi pushed away the darkness from his vision. He couldn't die yet, he had one last chance at survival.

The window darkened as someone passed by at a slow pace. This was Luigi's chance, although he was severely weakened by the past days, but he had to take it. Luigi, with the last of his strength and putting his all into it, let out the loudest bark he could muster. The collar had kicked in as it was supposed to and gave Luigi the shocking of a life time, but Luigi was already unconscious to where it didn't matter anymore. Penetrating the dark folds of his sleep, Luigi could make out a faint sound of yelling and scuffling

X

Mario stood over Waluigi's unconscious and bleeding body. He did what he had to in order to save his brother. It was clear that Luigi had to be here, as there were tufts of his fur everywhere, but they were soaked in blood which alarmed Mario the most. Mario had heard the weak but loud bark that he recognized as Luigi's. He didn't hesitate to beat up Waluigi who was clearly the culprit and demand where Luigi was. Waluigi didn't comply and Mario gave him one final kick to knock him out before searching on his own. Everything around Mario smelled like a corpse and horrified him. Mario walked around the house and small things like the bloodied and rusting scissors to the ropes and everything helped Mario piece together what happened. Mario felt sick that he even let any of this happen to Luigi. Finally the whole house was searched (Mario was especially alarmed when he found a corpse of a small animal, but he realized it was way to old and too big to be Luigi, which somewhat relieved him) and only one place was left: the basement.

Mario opened the door and a rotten scent hit him like a slap in the face. Luigi had to be down there. Mario went down the creaking and splintered steps slowly and was horrified what he found at the bottom. He found Luigi all right. Or at least he found his body. Mario stared at the broken body sitting in the light streaming from the window. As Mario got closer, the gravity of the situation seemed to increase as he saw just how bad Luigi looked. Luigi was covered in blood and his own waste, patches of fur missing from his body revealing wounds that looked infected and painful. Upon closer inspection, it seemed as if his hind legs and tail were detached from his spine and what haunted Mario most of all was Luigi's face. A large scar covered it and Luigi's eyes were half open, showing dull grey eyes that were seemingly devoid of life. Mario could remember only one other time when he had seen that before.

XxX

 _The family was visiting a farm and spending a little bit of time there to relax and unplug from their stress filled life in Brooklyn a bit. Mario, being the five year old daredevil that he was, climbed on top of the silo. Mario was busy feeling proud of himself and looking at the view, that he barely noticed the hand tugging at the back of his shirt. There was only one person who was too short to reach his shoulder to tap without having to stand on his tippytoes and that was Luigi._

" _Mario, we need to get down now before we get hurt," Luigi said with urgency in his voice, "If Mom or Dad sees up here, we're screwed!"_

" _Luigi, we're fine," Mario said nonchalantly, continuing to admire the hills upon hills of crops._

" _No, we're not fine. We need to get down now!" Luigi said insistently._

" _Why, shrimp? Is it because you're scared?" Mario asked tauntingly as he turned around gave a little shove to Luigi._

" _Mario, stop!" Luigi said boldly._

" _Why must you ruin all the fun, shrimp?" Mario asked as he gave Luigi another shove, this time a little bit too hard._

 _Luigi fell backwards and off the roof of the silo, his screams imprinting themselves in the memory of Mario forever. A few snaps and a sickening thud indicated that Luigi had finished falling. Mario looked carefully over the roof the silo and got a good look at Luigi's twisted body on the ground. Mario didn't hesitate to get down to the ground. Mario looked at his little brother's body and looked on in shock. Luigi's head was tilted at an unnatural angle and his eyes were half open, showing a sickly dull grey instead of a lively blue. Mario didn't hesitate to call out his parents, who quickly cut short the vacation to bring Luigi to the ER. Luigi's small body looked even smaller while hooked up to all the machines that were keeping him alive. Luigi got lucky because he hit a few tree branches on the way down, which helped decelerate him enough to where he only broke his neck on the ground instead of shattering his spine like he could have. He was very close to death. What hurt most was that Luigi didn't even blame Mario for any of it and when he finally woke up, he smiled and gave Mario a big hug, happy to be alive and to see his older brother._

XxX

Mario noticed the shock collar on Luigi's neck and took it offand gently picked up Luigi's frail and somewhat stiff body. He took off his gloves and held him close, noticing that the fur that refused to lose its softness felt brittle and scruffy. Mario sobbed, his tears falling freely on top of Luigi's twisted body in his arms, unable to believe that this wreck was moving and breathing and had its own personality and name not too long ago. Mario had failed as a big brother. He was busy stroking Luigi's chest, which had sustained the least damage when he felt the most wonderful thing in the world. A single heart beat. Luigi was still alive, but barely and Mario needed to act fast. Suddenly, Mario remembered that he never unloaded his pockets from the trip to the bunker. Mario emptied out his pockets onto the soiled floor and found just what he was looking for: a single one up mushroom. Mario picked up the savior mushroom and put it in his mouth and mashed it up with his teeth, careful not to swallow any of the precious life-giving fluids, and spit it out on his hand. Mario then carefully pried open Luigi's jaw and emptied the mashed up contents of his hand into Luigi's mouth. Mario gently closed it and stroked Luigi's through to force him to swallow it down.

Mario watched for a few minutes, hoping and praying that it would work and at least revive Luigi. A small cough rang out and Luigi began to stir slightly. Luigi closed his eyes the rest of the way and weakly snuggled further into Mario's arms. Mario watched in amazement and horror; horror because he noticed that Luigi's hind legs and tail were still unnaturally limp and didn't move. Something must have happened that dislocated them or worse. He hoped that Waluigi didn't pith Luigi and cause permanent damage. But it didn't matter at the moment. All that mattered was that Luigi was still alive and breathing. Mario pulled Luigi closer in a hug that he wasn't going to let go of anytime soon.

 _And that was probably the worse ending for a chapter that I have put out yet, but I needed to end it here. This chapter was originally going to have more content, but as I kept writing I realized that if I was going to keep writing that this chapter would probably have been about twenty pages long, when the last few chapters are about ten pages long. I realize that the torture depicted in this is really pushing the T rating, so sorry and I don't blame you if you had to skip that. Just realize that I had to write that. I paused so many times while typing that out and wondered to myself "What's wrong with me?" Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and I don't know how a shock collar works, so I was just guessing here. I managed to type this one out fast! It took about 4 hours to write this all. This chapter is a prime example of the darker parts of my mind. No wonder people won't let me near their children. But then again, I'm that weird person threatening people with staplers with a sadistic expression on my face. I have to say I questioned my sanity a lot while writing this. But I hope you enjoyed, and the story should lighten up significantly from here. Also, sorry to Rockster if I came out a bit harsh while explaining my reasoning for this not taking place before dark moon and the DNA thing. I just feel that books are a union between the author and the reader and I feel that the logic behind certain things are important to know. I'm one of those "the destination doesn't matter, but the journey" people and I kind of want to let you all have a look into my mind. It's hard to make up fake scientific reasoning! I'm also a debater and one thing you learn in debate is to impact things and the better understanding you have of an argument, the better you could show the importance of the argument to the topic. I probably lost 90% of you back there. Either way, that's the most violent chapter in this story (for at least what I have planned so far) and I hope you enjoyed. Please continue to criticize my work in reviews. And as one final thought, originally Dark Moon had happened when I started writing this, but then I realized that Luigi wouldn't be caught dead in a mansion again, so the story was E. Gadd lost the wave machine in the mansion because the Dark Moon broke and everyone went nuts, but I found that just focusing on the original mansion just plain worked better. So that's all folks and until next time, Norm out._

 _Don't forget that if Internet Explorer has enough courage to ask you to be your default browser, then you have enough courage to ask that girl out!_


	11. Chapter 11: Vengeance and Understanding

_Norman Whitesmith is back by popular demand! After all, those lynching mobs that stationed themselves outside of my house due to the last chapter aren't going to leave until I continue on with the story! I have to say, I almost scrapped the last chapter entirely in favor of a much less violent one, but the story is supposed to lighten up (but when you're writing the stories seem to take on a life of their own) and this isn't going to happen again, so I kept it. One thing I keep forgetting to explicitly say is that all the times that Luigi is leaving puffs of fur behind is because it's summer and he's shedding. I don't know why I keep forgetting to explicitly say that, but now it's out there in case you were confused! Also, some of the chapter titles are referencing something, so see if you can find the ones that I made up on the spot and the others that are referencing something. I don't want to keep you waiting much longer, so without further ado, here's Chapter 11!_

Chapter 11: Vengeance and Understanding

Luigi couldn't see. He could only feel. The darkness and demons were trying to drag him down to the depths of the underworld and Luigi was ready. He was ready to give his final breath, but he felt something peculiar. It seemed like little rain drops were covering him all over. Luigi felt his body being shifted and picked up as the darkness over his eyes prevented him from seeing anything. A single droplet made it's way into Luigi's mouth, the saltiness of it bringing the revelation that it was a tear. Luigi was being covered in tears. Luigi knew he was dying and very close to death, but something about the tears made him ward off the shadowy hands trying to take him to the underworld. The tears had to be of somebody who cared enough about him and found his body, but who was it? All Luigi could remember with his memory that felt very foggy at the moment was hate. Mario hated him, Waluigi hated him, Toadsworth hated him; heck, who didn't hate him? But why was he feeling love? Who still loved him?

Luigi felt a single heart beat rattle his chest and painfully wrack his broken body. It hurt to live. Suddenly Luigi felt himself being shifted again and his jaws were being pried open. Something mashed up was being put in Luigi's mouth and he felt the hand from the source of love stroking his throat so he had no choice but to involuntarily swallow. A warmth filled his stomach and slowly spread out. A taste came to his tongue that could be nothing other than the unmatched bitterness of a one up mushroom. Luigi let out an involuntary gag that was so painful that if he had the strength to move, he would have cringed all over. As the warmth continued to spread, Luigi realized that as the warmth passed over that he got sensation back rather than dull feeling. He was being brought back from the purgatory between life and death.

Luigi felt the warmth spread backwards, but with a small amount of shock he only received the sensation of numbness. As the heat continued to go over him and bring feeling, it also brought pain. Bitter and horrible pain. Luigi didn't have the strength to move, however. As the rest of the feeling returned, his nose started working again that had stopped working when he lost consciousness and he smelled the most wonderful scent in the world: his brother's cologne. If Luigi could cry, tears would have welled up in his eyes. Luigi felt his brother's warmth and love for him and with what little strength he had, he shuffled himself closer to his brother's chest. Mario responded with a little cry of joy and snuggled Luigi closer, and Luigi fell into a peaceful sleep to the beating of Mario's heart.

XxX

Mario rushed home as fast as he could, while cradling Luigi's body that was luckily still alive and holding on. He was such a fool for letting this all happen to Luigi and he couldn't help but feel the guilt. It was apparent that Luigi was in significant pain and there was very little that could be done about it at that point. Mario rushed into his house and very gently set Luigi on the couch, careful not to hurt anything more than it already was. Mario didn't hesitate and brought out a white blanket and lay it out on the kitchen floor so he had a good workspace. Mario picked up Luigi again and lay him down on the center of the blanket. Before he did any work, Mario had something to do.

Mario sprinted up to his room and quickly grabbed an old instant camera from his closet. He didn't hesitate to run back down the stairs and snap a picture of Luigi in full extent of the damage done to him. There was one person in particular that Mario was going to show this picture to and Mario hoped that it would hurt him when he saw it. Mario quickly pinned the picture to the fridge and set down the camera and got back to work. Mario grabbed his entire emergency one up supply and began to mash them up and mix them together with other ingredients in order to create a salve of some sort that would at least take care of the infected wounds. Mario rubbed it all over Luigi and decided to let it do its work before trying to fix Luigi's spine, and couldn't help but grab a pair of Luigi's overalls and hugged them close and began to cry again.

XxX

Luigi started waking up from probably the most blissful sleep of his life and was hit by… less pain? Luigi could remember the world of hurt and pain he was in, he could remember the place between life and death, and he remembered… Mario found him and saved him. Luigi slowly opened up his eyes and saw the kitchen ceiling. He was home again! Luigi took in the scents of home that he hadn't scented for at least five days and couldn't help but feel bliss. Suddenly, Luigi could hear crying that undeniably belonged to Mario. Why was he crying? A strange feeling washed over Luigi like a tidal wave and he somehow knew what was going on. Mario was feeling overly concerned for Luigi and was regretting his actions. Luigi knew that this was one of those rare times where you knew something you shouldn't because some force at work in the universe, probably God, wanted him to do something about it.

Luigi heaved himself to his front paws, as his back ones still weren't working and started dragging himself to the living room, unsure of what to do. Luigi had an idea! Luigi dragged himself over to the game shelf and saw his target: the Scrabble game that seemed to be conveniently located on the bottom shelf in easy reach of small animals. Good thing that the Mario household followed stereotypes! Luigi silently dragged the box from the shelf and opened it almost noiselessly. Luigi got spilled out the letters onto the floor and arranged them to say what he wanted and then let out a loud bark that sounded gravely and caused Luigi to spit up a little bit of blood onto the living room floor.

Mario heard a barking noise and immediately dropped what he was doing and rushed down the stairs. Luigi had woken up! When Mario reached the living room he noticed all the Scrabble pieces littering the floor and saw Luigi sitting there. Why did he get into the Scrabble pieces? Mario noticed that there seemed to be a small ring of space that was devoid of Scrabble pieces in which Luigi was sitting and he also noticed a few scrabble pieces inside that space in front of Luigi in a neat and straight little row. Mario looked closer and realized they said:

IM SORRY

Hot tears began to rush down Mario's face as he grabbed Luigi into a bear hug and pulled him close, Luigi whimpering too. Mario felt so much guilt rush through him that it was almost unbearable.

"It's me that should be sorry," Mario said as he hugged his brother close, "I should have never even let all that happen to you. I'm a horrible brother and I don't deserve such a sweet brother as you."

" _No, you're the best big brother that anyone could ever have. I don't think that anyone else loves me as much as you. I love you too much,_ " Luigi whimpered, still overcome with emotion.

"But I don't deserve to be called your big brother. We're twins, gosh darnit! I don't deserve your love after letting this happen to you."

Both Mario and Luigi froze and looked at each other. What had just happened?

" _D-d-did you just respond to me in context of what I just said?_ "

"I have no idea what that means, but why am I suddenly able to understand your words?"

Both a howl and a yell echoed through the kingdom. It's a wonder anyone sleeps in the kingdom with the amount of loud yelling and screaming that Mario and Luigi do.

"What's going on? What happened?"

" _I don't know! I didn't do anything!_ "

"Then why am I suddenly able to understand your barks as words with meaning?"

" _I seriously don't know! I'm 'talking' the same way I have since I transformed! I don't know why you can suddenly understand me!_ "

Mario and Luigi stared at each other awkwardly in silence for awhile before realizing that with their current knowledge that there was no possible way for them to make complete sense of everything, so Mario picked up Luigi and took him in the kitchen to redress his wounds.

"Sorry, but I don't know if this is going to hurt or not, Luigi," said Mario as he gently wiped the old one up salve off to put a new layer on.

" _Thank you, Mario. Not just for this, but for everything. You have no idea how much it sucks to be unable to talk. I just want to express my gratitude for everything you did to help me,_ " Luigi barked, but winced a bit when the salve came into contact with his skin. Luckily the salve only hurt for a second before adding a refreshing chilly feeling to his skin.

"Luigi, can you describe what you're feeling in your hind legs, please?"

" _I can't feel them at all. I lost feeling in them once Waluigi stabbed scissors into my back enough time._ "

Mario winced as Luigi described how he lost feeling, feeling horrible that he will never quite understand the horrors of everything Luigi quite went through. However, Mario had something to do right now and he couldn't hang himself up on the past for now. Mario gently felt on Luigi's back trying to find where the spine disconnected. Luckily, the spine wasn't disconnected and only felt weird in the presumable trouble spot. Mario perked up at the fact that it was only a dislocation that could be fixed.

"Luigi, the problem with your hind legs is a dislocation in your spine, which I can luckily fix. The only issue is that it's going to hurt. A lot. Would you like something to bite down on?"

Luigi cringed at the mention of horrible pain. Hasn't he gone through enough already? But if he ever wanted to walk again, this needed to be done. " _I probably don't need something to bite down on, but please do me a favor and make it as quick as possible._ "

"Don't worry, little bro. I'll try my best," said Mario as he very carefully lined up the two parts of the spine, getting ready to push them back into position. Mario gave a firm push and shove and with a pop and a large howl of pain from Luigi, the two parts were back together ((I know that spines don't work this way in real life, but I'm trying to make up fake science for the parts of the story that need it. It's not easy to make up believable fake science.)). Luigi huffed heavily. Luckily for him, that didn't hurt nearly as much as the other things Waluigi did to him. As the crashing waves of pain got over with, Luigi realized with joy that he could move his hind legs and tail again, albeit that they were a bit stiff. Luigi tried to get up, but fell over as his legs locked up and refused to move any further. Mario was on Luigi like a hawk to its prey and he gently started moving Luigi's legs back and forth, very much like after Luigi got stabbed with the needle, then moved onto his tail.

"Here, try that out," Mario said as he set Luigi to the floor to have him attempt to walk again.

Luigi tried again and had much more success and happily padded around in circles.

"What does it feel like?" asked Mario suddenly.

" _What?_ "

"What does it feel like to be a fox and what did it feel like to change?"

" _Being a fox in and of itself is weird, especially when you first found me and had no idea who I was. Also, you stroking me and cooing at me was weird on so many levels, you big baby lover. Anyways, it feels very weird to walk on all fours and to not have hands or be able to grab anything with something other than your mouth. Changing was horrible. It randomly started in the shower where I grew a tail and then I started growing fur everywhere, then I was found by Daisy after I freaked out and ran off after she saw me with fur everywhere. My transformation completed itself in the bathroom where you found me. Daisy was originally going to come back for me after she completed her speech and I don't know what was going to happen after that. But you found me and I'm glad you did._ "

Mario had no idea, nor did he really fully grasp what it must of felt like to be Luigi, and he knew this full and well. Mario grabbed snuggled Luigi close and let his tears fall onto his brother who was whimpering mournfully. Luigi still wasn't cleaned up from the torture and his fur was still brittle and stiff as it was still covered with a horrible mixture of blood, Luigi's own waste, and who knows what else. Mario pulled Luigi away from him until they were looking each other in the face.

"Luigi, you're going to need a bath," said Mario with a small smirk as he got his playfulness back.

" _What? No!_ " Luigi barked, not really wanting a bath.

"Well Weege, you don't really have hands to grab soap or anything in order to effectively, so it is my duty as your older brother to help you out," Mario said, being overly dramatic with hand motions as he said the last part, secretly relieved that he had his brother back and that he had a time of silliness before more trials came ahead. "So come on Fido, let's take you to the bath."

Mario didn't wait for Luigi to respond and scooped him up and carried him up the stairs to the bathroom. Luigi was trying to escape desperately, which didn't go unnoticed to Mario.

"Bro, what's wrong?" Mario asked, concern marring the blue in his eyes.

" _I don't know why, but the idea of water is suddenly frightening me. I don't think it has anything to do with Waluigi as he didn't do anything with me involving water. Other than giving me alcohol for whatever reason instead of food._ "

"HE WHAT? That man is a psycho and early tomorrow morning, I'm going to go to the castle officials and tell them to arrest him. You're never going to have to worry about seeing him again."

Mario got to the bathroom and started filling the tub with water of the perfect temperature for little foxes that desperately needed a bath.

" _Mario?_ "

"What Weege?"

" _What if they make you give me away again? Since I'm still barking and haven't done anything to alter the manner in which I 'talk', I don't think everyone can understand me, so thus, without the wave machine data, that is if that even reads accurately, it would be impossible to prove that I'm still me to anybody else._ "

Mario paused a moment. He hadn't thought of that and realized that there really wasn't any way to prove who Luigi was. If he prosecuted Waluigi, then it would be revealed that Mario hadn't gotten rid of Luigi. But then again, Mario had a plan for that… But what if even that doesn't work? Mario thought for a second and had a "plan".

"If they still refuse to let me keep you, then I'll stop being the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom."

" _WHAT?! That's ridiculous! You love the hero business; I don't want to get in the way of you and your unofficial job!_ "

"Luigi, I love you way more than the hero business and you're my brother and family. If keeping you means that I have to give up being the kingdom's protector, than so be it. Sure the adventuring and the fame are pretty sweet. Heck, there are many free beers to be had with the fame thing, but you're what matters most to me. I'll even find a way to get back to Earth and move back into Brooklyn with you if I have to. I was a horrible brother to you in the bunker and I don't deserve your love. That may have happened, but it's in the past now and I now have every day from here on out to make it up to you."

The bathtub finished filling and Mario noticed, but Luigi didn't. Mario, as quick as a meme about United Airlines gets spread around, snatched up Luigi and dunked him in the water, but careful to keep Luigi's snout out of the water to avoid inhalation. Mario had realized that typically small animals hate baths and Luigi just might have gotten a few instincts and Mario decided to get him in the tub as fast as possible before the instincts kicked in and made it impossible to get Luigi into the water. Luigi gave Mario a glare as soon as he opened his eyes, but Mario didn't notice because he was laughing too hard.

"Weege, you look like a drowned rat!" Mario chortled at the poor fox that's long and luxurious fur (or at least what wasn't touched by Waluigi) had absorbed a lot of water and got plastered to poor Luigi's body.

" _I swear when I'm human again I will get my revenge!_ "

"Good luck with that, fluff-butt. But for now, we need to get you clean."

Mario took off his hat in order to prevent it from getting wet, and pulled out a sponge and some soap and got to work scrubbing the grime off Luigi. Within about 2 and 3/8 minutes, the bath water had already turned an almost pitch black color. Mario drained the bath tub and grabbed the sprayer head and turned it on, careful to have the water at a blissful temperature and began to gently massage in more soap into Luigi's fur and wash it out. Luigi saw the look of happiness on Mario's face and couldn't help but feel happy too. After all, he had a brother who still loved and cared for him, fox or not.

When he finished cleaning Luigi, Mario pulled the damp thing out of the shower and set him on a towel on the counter and pulled out a hair dryer and began drying Luigi off. Seemingly every tuft of fur on Luigi's body became twice as fluffy as it was before and poofed straight out, causing another loud guffaw from Mario. Mario started to gently comb down Luigi's fur and grabbed out a pair of scissors so he could make it more even. Luigi felt unimaginable panic as soon as he saw the glint of steel in the scissors, but he got a reassuring pat from Mario and Mario got to work.

"Unfortunately, you're not Donald Trump, so you can't pull off the comb over. But then again, he can't either… You know, lets just finish this up before I have to think of him too much."

" _Who the heck is Donald Trump?_ "

"I don't know, but he sounds like a laughable person from Earth."

Mario finished up his masterful fur cutting job on Luigi and other than some scars sticking out that need fur to re-grow around them, Luigi looked completely normal. The one up salve had done its work and healed up the infected wounds quite nicely and Luigi didn't appear to be feeling anymore pain. Luigi looked gratefully up at Mario, but then noticed something strange.

" _Mario, why are there stripes of black in your hair?_ "

"I noticed them when I was looking for you, but I didn't really have the time to think about it. I don't know. Maybe my hair is finally darkening up like yours did when you were a kid to where my hair color matches my mustache color. But I really don't know, nor do I think it's important right now. I think going to bed is what's important now. Do you want to sleep in your hat again, little bro?"

" _Yeah, I'll sleep in my hat again._ "

Mario grabbed his hat and put it back on, then scooped up Luigi and carried him down the hall to his room. Mario placed Luigi on the bed along with his hat (that Luigi noticed smelled suspiciously like tears.) and began to get ready for bed. Luigi got into his hat and curled up and got comfortable. The nice familiar smell of strawberries and mint greeted him warmly.

" _It feels very weird to sleep in my own hat,_ " Luigi barked suddenly.

"Luigi, is there anything about this that isn't remotely weird?" Mario asked, his mouth full of toothpaste as he brushed his teeth.

" _Point well made and taken._ "

"Welp, it's time for us to get some sleep. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow," Mario said as he crawled into bed next to Luigi and snuggled him closer, "I love you bro. Never forget that."

Luigi drifted off to sleep and had nice and comforting dreams for once instead of his usual nightmares or nothingness. Luigi woke up the next morning to a scream of panic.

 _And that was Chapter 11 ladies and gents. So what was the scream all about? Can you guess? (actually there was a guest reviewer who hit the nail on the head in Chapter 10 before this question even came up) Who was Mario going to show the picture to? What was his plan that wasn't elaborated on? For once, these questions aren't easy to answer because their answers weren't explicitly stated in the text, so skittles to you if you can guess what the answers are. One more thing is that I'm going to delay the one shot "I'm Not Him". Its already got a portion of it written, but I'm investing all my time into getting the next chapters of this story out and that's taking up most of my time. However, I have a few more parts of this story planned out before I hit writer's block, so once I hit that, I will work on and publish the one shot, but that's 3-5 chapters from now, so I might figure something out and bypass the writer's block entirely. Please review and tell me what you thought of this chapter. And before I finish writing this note, here's an epic quote from Gabe Newell, creator of Steam: "C'mon, people, you can't show the player a really big bomb and not let them blow it up."_

 _And with that being said, until next time, Norm out. And don't forget that in the hero business that there are many free beers to be had!_


	12. Chapter 12: L Is Real

_Aaaand I'm back. Norman Whitesmith here for Chapter 12. I actually don't have a planned number of chapters for how long this will be, though I have majority of the story planned out. My guess is that when this is all said and done, that this story will be complete at around 25 chapters. Then comes "King Boo's Curse" and possibly a sequel series to "I'm not him". I showed someone who didn't know I was writing this story and this is what they said to it: "You're going to give me a nose bleed, Norman." I guess this was too cringey for them. Whoops. Oh well, you can't please everyone. I guess without further ado, Chapter 12._

Chapter 12: L Is Real

"But what do I do about this? It's downright embarrassing and I don't want to show my face in public?" Mario yelled at E. Gadd through the phone.

"I don't know what to do about it right now, my boy. Just cover it up and try to do whatever you were planning on doing today. I might be able to find a solution later on today, but I need to perform a bit of research to be sure," E. Gadd said, almost suppressing a laugh at Mario's voice that was high pitched and squeaking due to worrying. Mario panicking was not a normal occurrence, but when it did happen, it was something to behold.

XxX

It all started when Luigi woke up to a ear-splitting shriek coming from Mario. Luigi barely had time to open his eyes before getting shaken awake by Mario. As soon as Luigi had shaken off the sleepiness, he could see the reason for all the panic. Mario was standing in his boxer shorts in front of the mirror freaking out at some changes that had happened last night. He seemed to be an inch or two shorter and his ears seemed slightly more pointed with a small amount of black fuzz growing on the tips. But the most noticeable change was a little stub sticking out of Mario's tail bone. It was a small little stub of a tail that looked like a bull dog's, but was striped with brown and black, mimicking the pattern that had also appeared in Mario's hair. Like any reasonable person would react if they were in this specific situation, Mario looked like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Luigi knew there was no comforting Mario, as there was a big chance that Mario was being turned into an animal (probably a weird colored raccoon, Luigi guessed.), though at a slower pace than Luigi. Luigi realized that their best bet was to call the professor, as he probably knew what was happening and/or how to fix it.

Mario wasted no time picking up Luigi and rushing downstairs, Luigi relieved he didn't have to face the giant stairs again.

"Wait! I never got his phone number!" Mario cried out.

" _Just give me a pencil, big bro. I can dial it in for you._ " Luigi said, trying to mask his panic he was feeling too.

Luigi wasted no time picking up the pencil in his jaw and dialing the phone for Mario, who picked it up with a shaky hand and almost jumped on the professor when he first answered.

"Hello?"

"Hello! I need help! Things started changing! Help!" Mario was getting delirious, so Luigi jumped up and slapped him in the face with his tail, effectively calming down Mario somewhat.

"Slow down, sonny! Please say that slower."

Mario sighed and explained his somewhat short story and explained that he started growing a tail and how he could now understand Luigi. Deafening silence was the response on the other side of the phone after Mario finished his story, but then got replaced with a sigh. Mario could hear some papers being shuffled in the background.

"Well," said the professor, "I never got the time to tell you this since you hung up so quickly after getting the news about Luigi before I could say something else. Now please answer a few quick questions. One, are your ears changing too, two, did you get horrible migraines within the past three days, three, are you any shorter than your normal height, and finally, has your hair began to change color?"

"Yes to all of those. How did you know? Not to mention so specifically."

"Okay, before I start off, to assuage any fears, you're not going to fully turn into an animal like Luigi."

Relief rushed over both Mario and Luigi, Mario due to him not wanting to be a small fluffy animal, and Luigi (who was hearing with his strong hearing) glad that his older brother isn't going to share the same fate as him. After all, someone needs to have hands to open the fridge. Luigi felt a small bit of humor boiling up inside him now that his fears were gone. He couldn't help but laugh inside at how ridiculous Mario looked, with his little stump of a tail wagging hyperactively and nervously behind him and his ears twitching slightly, while standing there in his underwear unaware of his appendages moving.

"So what I didn't get the chance to tell you over the phone was that both the chemical in Luigi's blood stream and the stuff in your water was a pretty strong chemical, though the one in your drink was more artificial and wasn't as powerful as Luigi's chemical. One thing I was worried about was if your skin absorbed it and if it took effect, which I think the answer is pretty clear now. Though luckily, it was a chemical engineered to be taken orally and you have Luigi to thank for stopping you from drinking it, where without a doubt if you drank it, you would probably be an animal just like him. So I wondered about the skin thing, so I ran a 'what-if' scenario through a simulator and got some results from it, which is why I could tell so specifically what happened. Now tell me, can you tell what animal you are gaining the features of?"

"I'm guessing weird colored raccoon. But I don't want to be a weird colored raccoon!" said Mario, who was starting to get hyped up again with worry

"Can you tell me the extent of your changes, please?" the professor asked nonchalantly, not even worrying anymore and ignoring Mario's panic. Is it just Mario or does he sound somewhat amused? Mario quickly explained in detail everything that happened.

"Please tell me that there's something to be done about this. I have things I have to do today and I don't want to have a tail."

"Unfortunately, nothing can be done right now."

And that brings things up to present with E. Gadd on the verge of laughing (since he could imagine Mario looked ridiculous and there was really no danger to fear), and Mario panicking with his tail moving in circles so quickly that it almost seemed like Mario was going to take off like a helicopter, while Luigi watched the conversation unfold from the spot he was sitting on the phone table, his tail swishing with amusement.

"Mario, just calm down and go about your everyday business. Luigi will help, I'm sure, and you can come to the bunker tonight after your business and I'll set up cots and you can spend the night while I run a few more tests and try to figure out a solution. But for now, calm down until you can visit the bunker. I also strongly suggest that you don't tell anybody else, even Peach, about this due to them possibly having a negative reaction to this situation like they did with Luigi. Just hide it the best you can."

E. Gadd quickly said his goodbyes and hung up, leaving Mario standing there in shock and silence.

"How the heck do I just go on as if everything is normal?!" Mario asked rhetorically as he started to pace back and forth frantically.

" _Mario,_ " Luigi said, startling Mario out of his thoughts to which he let out a very loud chitter that sounded like a raccoon that got startled pretty badly, " _What the heck was that, bro?_ "

Mario only began to panic even more. "E. Gadd said I wasn't going to go full raccoon, but he didn't specify how much I'm going to change! What if I lose my humanity?"

" _Chill out, big bro. I got a concentrated dose of a more powerful chemical, yet I still retained my humanity, though others questioned it. You're going to be fine. You probably won't be able to wear your overalls, even though your tail is only about two inches long, but just wear a sweater vest or something and make up some excuse why you aren't wearing your overalls. And it looks as if you could just brush your hair a bit so that it covers the tips of your ears. As for shortness, maybe wear different shoes that will make you appear somewhat normal. I'll be with and help you. Also, your tail is twitching about like a two year old during church service._ "

Mario looked back to see his tail twitching rapidly. He stared at it for a few seconds and it calmed down and stopped moving.

"That's better. You're right, Luigi, we need to take care of necessary business and standing around and panicking isn't going to be doing anything. Let's go upstairs and find some things for me to wear!"

Mario snatched up Luigi and brought him upstairs and set him on his red bed. It wasn't long before Mario started digging through the closet looking for some clothing to wear. Mario came across everything from horrendous styles from the 80's to the thrift shop things that his mom had got him. Luigi watched amusedly as Mario dug up ancient relics from the past, when suddenly Mario darted over to Luigi and before he could react, Luigi found himself in an old and small shirt of his that now fit perfectly.

"Hey, I found one of your old shirts from when you were a baby! It fits perfectly now! Though I have no idea how it ended up in my closet."

" _Hey! Take it off now, it itches._ "

"But you look absolutely adorable in it, my little baby brother."

" _Like you're one to talk, raccoon man. You're still standing around half naked._ "

And after some more long strings of sibling insults while Mario continued to look in his bottomless hole of a closet, he finally found some perfect red clothing, while Luigi acquired some more baby clothes of his and almost looked like an overly spoiled dog with his shirt, booties, pants with his tail sticking out one of the legs, and even a tiny little green bonnet on.

" _Oh goodie, you found something. NOW GET THESE CLOTHES OFF OF ME!_ " Luigi howled, almost growling at the end.

"Oh come on little bro, admit it, you look adorable." Mario said as he put his clothing on and gave Luigi a small tap on the tip of his nose.

" _Fine, I'll admit I do look absolutely adorable, but clothing and fur does not mix and these clothes itch like crazy. I was barely able to stand that bandanna collar, but at least that was small and pretty isolated to my neck and I forgot about it after awhile._ "

For a second a look of strong emotion flashed Mario's face before leaving, but it was long enough for Luigi to notice and give Mario a look of concern.

" _What's wrong?_ " asked Luigi, concerned.

Mario rummaged around in his pocket for a second before bringing out the bandanna collar.

"I'm so sorry for doing this all to you little bro. I know I can't say this enough, but you almost died because of me. It seems that your life is only hurt and pain and it's all because of me! I don't care how much you say you forgive me, I still feel guilty. I failed you as a big brother too many times to be forgiven."

Mario wasn't even trying to hold back his emotion at this point and he sat down on the bed next to Luigi and began to sob pitifully. Mario barely noticed the fluff ball that had crawled himself into Mario's lap and was staring at him. Luigi knew that word's wouldn't cut it at this point and did the best he could to comfort his brother. Mario opened his eyes from his sobbing when he felt the tickling sensation on his face and saw that Luigi had propped himself up on Mario's chest with his paws and was licking away the tears. Mario felt even worse, but nobody could keep crying with a fox kit licking you affectionately, and soon those sobs turned into little laughs as Mario hugged Luigi close.

"Thanks, little bro," Mario chuckled weakly, "I needed that. I still won't be able to forgive myself, but I'm glad that you love me and that you are my little brother."

" _No problem, big bro,_ " Luigi cooed, " _I will always love you. You need to forgive yourself, because it wasn't entirely your fault. I shouldn't of bit you or otherwise that could have possibly suggested I wasn't me. After all, as you said earlier, you have everyday from now until the day that we die to make it up to me. So can we please get these clothes off of me? Clothing and foxes do not mix._ "

Mario let out a small laugh and pulled all the uncomfortable baby clothing off of Luigi and put the collar on Luigi again.

"So why did you bite me in the mansion?"

Luigi looked up at Mario with a haunting look in his eye (no pun intended.). " _They were coming for you, Mario. They were going to hurt you and I couldn't let that happen. The same ghosts that gave me the scars that mar my back and chest were laying in wait in a room you were about to enter and they were going to kill you Mario. They were going to kill me. I couldn't let that happen. I had to get you away, so I took your light. I don't know why I bit you, but I did. I shouldn't of bit you, I'm sorry. I'm a monster._ "

Luigi's sentences were short and forced out and Mario realized that Luigi was starting to hyperventilate and was getting delirious. Mario picked up Luigi and started patting him on the back to calm him down. Luigi's breathing returned to normal and it was then that what Luigi had said sunk into Mario. Luigi was only trying to save him once again. The bite was a result of a bad split second decision, but it was still to save him. He could have very easily died if Luigi didn't do anything. Luigi bit him because he had to. Mario remembered Luigi trying to squirm out of his grip desperately.

"I had no idea…" Mario murmured as he absentmindedly stroked Luigi. If one thing was clear to Mario, it was that he had to consider things more before slapping down a judgment. Mario set Luigi down and started putting on his clothing, seeming out of it and distant with his slow and smooth movements. Mario was brought back to reality when he felt a pain in his tail from trying to put his shirt over it wrong. Mario wagged the thing a few times before slipping on his red sweater vest and coving his tail in the fold of the wool. It wasn't the most appropriate summer wear, but it wasn't so unusual that everyone would question it, unlike that one time he had decided to wear his too small… never mind, it's better to not imagine that again.

Mario picked up Luigi and both went out the door, but not after Luigi noticed Mario grabbing a weird picture of sorts off the fridge, but Mario grabbed it and put it in his pocket before Luigi could see. Luigi decided not to question this as both made their way towards the lovely forest trail instead of the warp pipe, much to Luigi's relief. The sun was out and a sweet summer breeze was blowing, making the leaves glide in the light and wind, performing the most beautiful music one could ever hear. It wasn't long before the brothers had reached Toad Town, but neither of them spoke a word, although Luigi was curious as to where they were going. Mario kept walking and exchanged a few pleasantries with toads who had wanted to pet Luigi and such, luckily with none of them questioning the new clothing choice, unlike when he wore his too small… it's still too horrible to mention.

Mario kept cheerfully walking through the town, never letting his cheerful façade down, as the town in a way, needs to believe their hero to be sure footed and never faltering. Luigi suddenly understood where they were going when the castle gates loomed up in front of them and Mario was having a short conversation with the guard toad about talking to the princess. Of course the toad let the two in and Mario began to walk through the grand interior of the castle towards the garden where Peach was watering the plants. After walking through the long castle corridors, lavishly decorated to the nines, Mario and Luigi emerged into the castle courtyard and got blinded by the golden sun once again. Mario set Luigi down on the rim of the fountain before going over and talking to the princess, who hadn't noticed them.

Luigi padded around the fountain with the star statue in the center until he noticed a fairly new looking plaque. Luigi squinted to read the messy words and struggled to make it out. Despite the plaque clearly being new, it seemed old and off. Luigi finally managed to make out "L is real 2401". What? The number on the plaque was the inverse of his and Mario's birthday, January 24th. What did it mean. Luigi leaned a bit too close and plunged into the icy cold water, which quickly soaked through his fur and dragged him down. Luckily Luigi was normally a strong swimmer and was able to easily figure out how to swim and brought his head to the surface. The water felt nice in the warm summer day, so Luigi swam around for a few minutes until he felt Mario's big hands close in on him and bring him out onto the brick ground.

Luigi felt the same vibrating sensation overcome him that did when he first got his tail, and soon he was completely dry. Unfortunately, Peach and Mario who were standing there looking at him were not. Luckily both of them laughed it off and Peach took off her gloves and picked up Luigi, who was blushing bright red under his fur for some reason.

"I never got the chance to hold you before. I didn't realize you were this soft," said Peach in the same sugary manner that she usually spoke that turned any average man to a blubbering wreck. Peach stroked Luigi, who was in absolute bliss, until she came to one of the partially covered bald spots on Luigi's back.

"What's this?" Peach asked, as she spread apart the fur with her two fingers to reveal one of the nasty looking scars that Waluigi left, "What happened, Luigi? Who did this to you?"

Luigi only looked up at her and started whimpering. Peach started tearing up, as she was one of the people who couldn't stand to see others in pain, especially when she could see how painful this must have been for Luigi.

"Waluigi."

Mario spat the one word with such intensity and anger, that both Peach and Luigi flinched and stared at each other for a second, both afraid of Mario's somewhat famous explosive temper. Luigi had already experienced it once within the past week and it was not a good thing to be on the receiving end of that anger.

"I came because of that. I need to speak to Toadsworth," Mario said, trying to steady his voice as much as he could, but still injecting the last word with the venom of a black mamba snake, "I just need to have a little conversation with him about all this."

"Have a conversation with me about what?" Toadsworth stepped out of the castle and into the garden, staring at Mario challengingly.

"I think it would be best to have this conversation one on one alone," Mario growled, still angry to the point where steam almost seemed to be coming out of his ears.

"That would be just fine," said Toadsworth who was also starting to get angry, "I believe there's an empty conference room just inside these doors."

Both men walked in and within seconds, the yelling fest commenced, leaving Peach and Luigi wondering what the heck was happening. Both Luigi and Peach heard clearly the big yell from Mario saying "HE WAS DARN NEAR PITHED! HE ALMOST LOST THE ABILITY TO BE ABLE TO WALK AT ALL! JUST LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. HIS BLOOD WOULD HAVE BEEN ON YOUR HANDS!"

Soon the yelling of Mario was accompanied by Toadsworth's crying, but eventually the hubbub died down and there was silence for a few minutes before both walked out of the castle again calmly, luckily with neither of them bearing any scratches.

"We have worked things out," Toadsworth began, "Mario gets to keep Luigi and Waluigi is getting sent for by soldiers right now to be put in prison. I'd especially like to apologize to you, Luigi. It wasn't fair to assume you needed to be released into the wild, nor was it fair to assume you'd need to be watched every second by Mario. I was wrong, so please forgive me. I will take my leave now."

Toadsworth walked back into the castle, clearly burdened by what he heard from Mario, and contemplating his future decisions.

' _Well this is rare,_ ' thought Luigi to himself, ' _Toadsworth admitted he was wrong for once._ '

Luigi, however, got his thoughts cut off by squeals of joy from Peach as she hugged Luigi closer, happy that he could stay. Peach eventually stopped hugging Luigi and put him on the ground and Luigi ran and sat down behind Mario, who was talking to Peach. It was only a matter of time before they hooked up, Luigi knew, and they were just exchanging their normal sappy words with one another. Luigi noticed Mario's tail twitching underneath his sweater vest. Was it just him or was it getting slightly bigger… Mario suddenly cringed for a second and the tail that had definitely gotten bigger had slipped its way out from under the vest and Luigi got a full view of it.

"Are you alright, honey?" Peach asked, eyeing Mario oddly, not noticing Mario's tail now swishing back and forth nervously in little circles as he lied. Mario put his hands behind his back as discretely as possible and covered his tail once again before lying.

"Yes, I just felt a sudden chill is all."

"Oh, alright. Just take care of yourselves."

Mario and Luigi both left as fast as they could without looking suspicious, the big lump that was Mario's tail standing out a little bit now. Mario and Luigi got out of the castle grounds and went into the woods as fast as they could in order to avoid any prying eyes of the public.

" _Thank you for standing up for me._ "

"I did what I had to."

" _And to believe that we'd be alive to see the day when Toadsworth finally admits he's wrong. What a day to behold._ "

" I know! Mushroom Kingdom should make this into a national holiday or something."

And both brothers walked into the woods, laughing as they made their way back to the bunker.

 _And that's that! Sorry for this dialogue heavy chapter, as I know not everyone likes those. After the next chapter, this story is going to be getting into the main plot line. Can I get a hallelujah? [_ **No** _] Fine then, you can all be that way. Man, don't we all have people in our lives like Toadsworth where it would be the day to behold when they admit they were wrong without trying to spread blame elsewhere. I know I sure do. Sorry for this chapter taking a little bit longer to publish. I don't really have too much free time right now, so I'm doing what I can. I made up the birthday of Mario and Luigi, as they don't really have official birthdays. I bet majority of you recognize the "L is real" thing from Super Mario 64, as that is what was written on the fountain. The funny thing is, is that developers confirmed that was put there as a joke as they knew people would go to extensive lengths to try to find out what it meant when it really meant nothing. But this plaque, I'm thinking, is going to have significance when I do a spin off of this story (Way later on in the story, Luigi is going to have to make a hard choice. The spin off will be about if he decided to choose differently then what he's going to choose.), but for now, you decide what the inversed birthday and plaque means. Also, the castle isn't based off of any castles in the games either, I just used the Mario 64 courtyard. The bro's house isn't based off of any of the games either, except for the family name over the house in the [good games of the] Paper Mario series. I also changed the summary of this story because the first one absolutely sucked. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And remember, Men don't cry, we weep!_


	13. Chapter 13: A Quest of Sorts

_Welcome to the 13_ _th_ _issue of the weekly edition of the author's note! Where spelling and grammatical errors don't matter as much! Another issue I want to address for the last chapter is how Mario was yelling at Toadsworth. The one phrase you heard was the only thing Peach and Luigi heard, but more conversation did go on that you never heard. I have to say that I rushed the last chapter a bit (as in I cut out a bit more than usual for use in the next chapter, which would now be this chapter, as if that makes any sense), but I got said what needed to be said, and really I rushed it by cutting out more for this chapter. I really only did that so I could stay on the fairly regular schedule of a chapter a week. Within the last month (as of when I am starting to write this on April 1_ _st_ _2017) I noticed that I had gotten a little over 2000 views, which is absolutely amazing to a self-proclaimed nobody like me! I'm just wondering now how popular this story will be by the time it "finishes its run"? But that is all together up to you, the reader (who I will track down and will hit over the head with a plastic master sword repeatedly if you don't leave a review), so please leave a review and tell me how I'm doing, how I can improve, etc., etc. Even if it's just a "good job", that would be appreciated, because that tells me that I'm doing alright and there isn't necessarily a giant gaping problem with the story. Seriously, review. Please and thank you. But that was really just an inspirational "I got over 2000 views on this, so horray!" ramble. Here's to hoping for getting over 3000 views by the end of this month (and I'm not, nor will I ever be the person who says that I need a certain number of reviews if you want me to continue writing). All in all, this chapter was supposed to be lumped together with the last one originally, but due to time, I left this part out for the time being, and also the chapter name is the original name of the last chapter (I made up the "L is Real" when I realized I wasn't going to get the correct name in). So enough of my ramble, so without further ado, here's unlucky chapter 13._

Chapter 13: A Quest of Sorts

The gentle whooshing of the forest wind tempted the two Mario Brothers to be lulled into a deep eternal sleep, but both needed to stay strong. It was dark outside and the hoots of owls mixed with the creaking of trees and the wind created an indescribable harmony to which plucked at the souls of travelers who would happen to pass through. Luigi looked up at the full moon in the sky and couldn't help but let out a howl of longing as he stared up at the bright white face and the sparkling stars around it. Mario just looked down at Luigi and shook his head a little with a small smile. Luigi hoped to explore the galaxies one day. Perhaps he'd go save and become friends with the stars. Maybe he'd visit planets that are so wacky and outrageous that the imagination couldn't capture it. Maybe he'd meet some tall and hot lady… What was he thinking? Luigi shook the thought away. It's always been the same old of Bowser kidnapping the princess and Mario having to go after her. Classic. Never going to change. Ever.

The trip to the bunker was uneventful and luckily there weren't any attacks (except for that frightful bunny encounter that made Luigi almost lose it.) and both brothers breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the rusted front door. As soon as Mario raised up his hand to pound on the front door, the door swung open to reveal an excited looking E. Gadd.

"Come on in, my boys! I'm excited to get this opportunity to study you, Mario. And I think I just might have a cure for it!" E. Gadd said excitedly as he almost dragged Mario in.

As the professor dragged Mario in with surprising strength for a tiny old man and shut the door, he didn't realize that Mario's tail had slipped lose again from his shirt and got caught in the door. E. Gadd realized his mistake as soon as Mario made another involuntary raccoon chattering noise, which caused Mario to cover his mouth in shock immediately and start to blush. E. Gadd quickly rushed over to the door and opened it, examining the raccoon tail as he did so.

"Well, sonny, you're definitely turning into a raccoon, albeit a discolored one. And it appears your tail is all right, luckily."

Mario murmured a thanks before going over to the ladder and descending it, tail swishing back and forth behind him the entire way. Mario entered the laboratory once more, but this time a familiar scent filling the air that brought joy to him.

Mario's tail went erect and stuck straight up as he yelped with joy "Spaghetti!" as he quickly ran to find the source of the smell, his melancholic mood dissipating like darkness under a fog light.

E. Gadd and Luigi, who had dropped out of Mario's arms when the door was shut, simply stood at the ladder to the bunker, both shaking their heads after hearing the excited Mario.

" _I guess some things never change,_ " cooed Luigi amusedly.

"I haven't an exact idea of what you just said, my boy, but I believe that I speak for the both of us when I say that Mario will always be Mario, no matter the circumstances."

The professor picked up Luigi and both headed down the ladder to find that Mario had leapt upon the pasta like a cheetah onto its prey in the savannah. Pasta sauce had sprayed all over Mario's face as he didn't hesitate to dive in and feast upon his "conquest". It wasn't until Mario noticed that both E. Gadd and Luigi were both watching him that he paused. A camera seemingly appeared in the professor's hands and Mario didn't have time to get out of his hunched over position before the camera flashed.

"Hey!" Mario protested, "What did you do that for?"

"Simple," replied E. Gadd, "Blackmail."

Both Luigi and the professor burst out into guffaws (well, for Luigi it was more of a cacophony of tiny squeaks.) as they saw the priceless look of shock and fake betrayal on Mario's face. The laughter volume increased as Mario grabbed a nearby table cloth and tried to wipe off the pasta sauce, but only ended up smearing it further. Finally Mario dipped the cloth in some water and successfully cleaned off his face, and the laughter finally ceased and E. Gadd and Luigi stared at Mario as if they were seeing a ghost.

"What? I didn't eat breakfast today so I was hungry! Why are you guys staring?"

E. Gadd held up a shaking finger and pointed to Mario's face. Mario felt his face and couldn't feel anything unusual until he came to his ears. They felt bigger and a little out of place, as if they had scooted up the side of his head a small bit. The fuzz had also spread and covered about half of his ears now. Mario made some more raccoon noises before taking off on all fours to hide in a dark corner of the laboratory, where he snuggled his tail and started to cry and shake. Luigi padded over to Mario and gave him a small reassuring lick before forcing his way into his arms.

Mario stopped crying and looked down at Luigi and gave him a small sad smile. "Sorry you had to see that, little bro."

" _It's alright. I panicked worse than that when I began to change. Plus, I know how scary it is, so don't worry._ "

Mario hugged Luigi before setting him down and walked over to the professor.

"Please show me the results, professor," Mario said calmly, losing all hints of panic that were there before, other than his eyes still bearing the telltale red from his tears.

"Well, first I want you to take a shower and put this on," the professor handed Mario weird white clothes of thin fabric, "Then I can get a scan of you so I can give you more accurate results. The clothes are so you can wear something that won't interfere with the results and so that you aren't standing around here naked."

Mario took the clothes without a word and headed off to the small bathroom off to the side. The professor watched and as soon as Mario was gone, picked up Luigi and set him next to the plate of pasta that still had a small bit left.

"Here you go, sonny. I think it's pretty clear you haven't eaten for awhile either."

Luigi blinked at the professor gratefully and dug in, covering his soft and downy fur with red. As soon as Luigi finished, he lay down on the table feeling full and accidentally let his fur rest in the excess spaghetti sauce that was still on the plate, which caused the professor to chuckle a little as he picked Luigi up again.

"Looks like you're going to need your own bath, Luigi." the professor said with a smile as he put Luigi down on the counter next to the sink and began to fill up an empty side of the sink with water, checking to make sure the water was the perfect temperature.

As soon as the sink was filled up to the right amount, the professor picked Luigi up and plunged him into the sink, where the warm water immediately broke through Luigi's defense of thick fur and soaked wonderfully into his skin. Luigi started to involuntarily make cooing noises of pure bliss as the professor reached underneath the cabinet and grabbed out some special soap for dogs. Luigi looked at the professor quizzically.

"Since I invited you over to the bunker, I had a feeling that this would be needed so I went shopping in a nearby village and got this. Good thing it was needed! Also, I'd be lying if I tried to deny that this is the weirdest thing I've ever done by far in all 85 years of my life."

The professor added the soap to the water and mixed it in good before leaving the sink for a moment and grabbing a towel and placing it on the boiler. E. Gadd resumed his cleaning treatment of Luigi and rubbed in the soap well until the bathroom door opened as Mario finished up. The professor quickly rinsed Luigi off and quickly grabbed the towel off the boiler to dry Luigi off. Luigi could see why the professor put the towel on the boiler as it was warmed to absolute perfection and comfort. E. Gadd picked up Luigi in the towel bundle and handed him off to Mario, who was smiling as he received Luigi. Luigi looked far too adorable with only his head sticking out of the bundle, fur fluffed up to the max, and his eyes closed with a contented expression on his face. Suddenly the phone rang, which shocked poor Luigi awake just as he was dozing off to sleep.

"I'll get it," Mario said as he set Luigi down on the counter.

Mario picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hello. Eyewitnesses said you went into the forest after you left the castle so we assumed you went to the weird old professor's."

"I heard that," E. Gadd shouted.

"Well anyways, Toadsworth had us call you to tell you about Waluigi."

"Oh? So what's up?"

"Well… there were some complications, you see. We couldn't find him in his house. All we could find was a weird looking albatoss, an especially ugly one to be exact. Funny thing, though, is that it kept trying to put on one of Waluigi's extra hats as if it were human. The sucker was vicious too. It kept trying to attack us, so we called animal control and they took the sucker in and it's going to be put in the zoo. I can't say I blame it for it's behavior, though. The house looked like a slaughter house inside with blood everywhere, that clearly wasn't the thing's because it didn't have a scratch on it. Sorry I got a little side-tracked there. I'd like to apologize on Toadsworth's behalf for being unable to find the criminal. He had us call to let you know that."

Mario was speechless. He calmly said goodbye and hung up the phone slowly and did nothing but stare off into space without moving, tail lashing behind him being the only signal that he was alive.

" _Mario, are you alright?_ "

"No, Luigi, I'm not alright. I think that albatoss is Waluigi. When I came in to rescue you, I found him drinking a cup full of weird red liquid. I didn't want to believe that it was blood and only thought it was some juice or something regular. But the professor himself did say that you had a lot of excess fluid in your system and it would make sense for a madman like Waluigi to be drinking your blood. I'm sorry again that you had to be with that psycho for one minute."

E. Gadd watched the brothers talk and decided to break the ice after the silence followed the heavy statement made by Mario.

"Mario, I think it would be best to get the tests done on you now," said the professor gently as he guided Mario by the arm over to a side room, "just step into the booth inside and wait there until you hear the beep. When you hear that you can step out and the scan will be done."

Mario obeyed and E. Gadd rushed over to a nearby computer and pressed a few buttons that caused strings of code to rush over the screen before a ding sounded. Mario stepped out of the door of the side room seconds later and a "processing data" screen appeared on the computer screen.

"Oh! And before I forget," the professor grabbed a sheet of paper off of a messy desk nearby, "I did fix the wave machine and although the results are kind of redundant of what we already know, this proves Luigi is himself over all."

"What do you mean by over all?"

"Analyzing the results show that his brain changed slightly and gave him some new animal instincts, as shown here by this dip," E. Gadd pointed to something on the graph and Mario's ears perked up with curiosity, as Luigi sat on the ground with only his imagination to tell him what they were looking at, "so his thought process wasn't debilitated, luckily, but you should really avoid throwing sticks around him, because otherwise instinct will kick in. And probably at the worst possible time, too."

" _What? No I won't!_ " Luigi protested, until Mario picked up a pencil from the nearby desk with a smug smile and chucked it. Time seemed to blur for Luigi and before he knew it, he was sitting on the floor three yards away gnawing on the pencil.

"As you were saying, Luigi," said Mario with a smile.

" _I hate you. Just wait until you start instinctively start eating garbage in alleyways._ "

Mario was about to make a snappy comeback that would completely own Luigi and make him unable to show his face in public again, but a ding from the computer interrupted them.

"The results are in!" cried E. Gadd, a little too much like a game show host would.

The computer screen changed and showed a polygonal scan of Mario along with lots of text flowing next to the scan.

"Okay, I have another suspicion with you, much like I did with Luigi, so let's see if that's true," E. Gadd scrolled through the screen until he focused on one thing, "Aha! I was correct! I thought that an odd colored raccoon sounded a little bit too much like a different animal of legends. This scan revealed that the animal you're changing into is in fact another Japanese animal called the Tanuki!"

"Quid est?"

E. Gadd pulled out an old book from a nearby shelf and flipped open to a page. "A Tanuki is a Japanese version of a raccoon that is known for being a symbol of luck and wealth, has a rather large gut typically, and has a verrry large…"

"A very large what?" Mario asked.

The professor very slowly showed them a picture in the book, with a look of pure disgust on his face. Mario and Luigi both winced.

"Eww! I don't want that! That's just plain gross!" Mario cried, holding his tail.

"Relax, I don't think that that's going to happen to you because this is a story intended to be fairly kid-friendly."

"What?"

"What? Never mind. And also, let's run these results through the "what if" simulator and see if it can give us a better idea of how far this is going to go," the professor hit another button on the keyboard and the polygonal scan of Mario reset itself so it looked like regular Mario. The professor hit another button and the scan slowly changed until it was a shorter and stouter version of Mario with raccoon ears and a giant tail. "Okay, this says that within the time frame of the next two weeks that the transformation will complete itself. You can expect your ears to finish changing, your tail to get bigger, to shrink down to the height of 4'6", and put on some more weight."

"…that really sucks!" Mario said, "How do I fix this? You mentioned a possible cure."

E. Gadd flipped to another page of the book he was holding and put his finger onto a page.

"Ah yes. It is a magic item of legend, but I believe it exists. It's called the prism star," Professor E. Gadd showed them a picture of it before continuing to read, "It is a star from long ago that is said to have healing abilities far beyond anything seen before. That includes fixing curses. However, if it does exist, which once again I believe it does, it was said to be fractured into four pieces. So I guess that this is really the only way to fix this. The question is, are you willing to go gallivanting off all over Arret ((that's what I named the planet they are on)) to attempt to find something that might not even exist in order to fix this mess?"

Mario and Luigi stood still for a second, Luigi examining his paws, Mario holding his tail. Were they really willing to go and try to find something that might not even exist and waste their time. Luigi looked down at his paws that used to be hands. He wanted more than this. He wanted to be able to grab things, he wanted to be normal, even if people made fun of him on a regular basis, and most of all, he wanted to feel Daisy's touch and to be something with her or at least have a possibility to be with _somebody_. Truth be told, nobody would date an animal. Luigi knew that he had to find the prism star and hold onto the hope that it existed.

Mario held his twitching tail in his hands. He knew that this was his future if he didn't do something. But would it really be so bad? Mario suddenly thought of the princess and realized that a weird raccoon man wouldn't make a fitting king. Even though Peach's dad, before he died, kept getting in silly shenanigans like getting his tie caught in peanut butter jars all the time, he was still human, and thus a fitting ruler. What would the kingdom think of their "hero" if he looked like this? Nothing good, most likely. If he stayed like this, he wouldn't have a chance with Peach. Mario may only be a humble plumber, but he still had a better chance than like this. Mario looked at Luigi and knew that he had to also fix him. He had too much on the line to just give up, even if what they were going to chase something that might have less tangibility than a shadow.

Both Mario and Luigi looked up from their pre-occupations, with a fire of determination burning in both of their eyes. Mario could tell that Luigi was in too and spoke for the both of them.

"We'll do it. There's hope and as long as we stay determined, we can do it!" Mario said with a voice bursting in confidence, "I believe that it exists and that Luigi and I are going to find it!"

E. Gadd gave a smile. "Now that's the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom and Arret that I hear talking! I guess we can call this a quest of sorts. Now according to this book, one of the shards supposedly landed in a dessert as old as time."

Luigi thought about it. Where were some desserts? He remembered hearing of a place called Dozing Sands on some far off tourist island, but that would be less than convenient to get to. Where were some other desserts that were closer to start the search in? Wait! How could he have been so foolish to forget? Sarassaland was nearby and seemed to fit the criteria! The search could at least be started there! Plus Daisy was there and would happily lend a hand!

" _Mario! We could start the search in Sarassaland! That could give us a good start!_ "

"You're right, Luigi! E. Gadd, Sarassaland is probably the best first place to look!"

E. Gadd smiled again, but noticed the bags underneath Mario's eyes and noticed how droopy Luigi was getting.

"Well, that's all and good, my boys, but it would probably be in our best interests to get a full night's sleep first before setting off on a long journey. Also, Mario, I think you will have to get a disguise once the transformation progresses further just to hide your identity a bit until this whole ordeal is over, but we can deal with that in the morning. I think with things the way they are at this point, you can still pass off as yourself for awhile. But I pulled out a cot in the other room, so you two should skedaddle off to bed now."

Mario gave a nod and picked up Luigi to head off to bed. A large journey that may just be in vain laid ahead of them, but they were up to the challenge. As Mario put Luigi in his hat and climbed into the cot and snuggled up to him, Mario smiled and he could almost imagine a shooting star racing across the night sky.

End of Part 1

 _And that's it for part one. I'm going to be taking about a one or two week break from this story so I can work on other projects that I'm starting. My plans are to write the first chapter to "King Boo's Curse", write "I'm Not Him" and start another fanfiction that I'm not going to give you the name of, but you're just going to have to tune in to find it. Also, this break is going to give me a chance to figure out plot fillers that I haven't quite figured out yet. I already have the last paragraph of this story written out and I have the ideas leading up to it, but there are still some story details I need to solidify so that I can continue to make this fanfiction of good quality, rather than rushing everything and being too lazy. But either way, the break isn't going to be too long and I'm going to be back soon on this story. The aforementioned "King Boo's Curse" is a full planned out story that I don't have details solidified on yet, but I'm at least going to put the first chapter out there to see how much interest is in it. Same thing with the unnamed fanfiction. Also, I named the planet they're on Arret because it's Terra backwards, which is another name for Earth. Also, the weird "Quid est" phrase is Latin. I'm learning Latin right now and I put that in for reasons. I have nothing else to say other than I hope you enjoyed and see you in a few weeks. Until next time, Norm out. And don't forget that when you're kidnapping somebody, that using chloroform is cheating!_


	14. Chapter 14: Desert Flower

_And I'm finally back to Kitsune Curse! Norman Whitesmith here to bring you part two of the fanfiction that makes many people question their sanity. Part two is the part that finally gets down into the nitty gritty of the story, and I'm so excited. Another special thanks to Pikminfan who is constantly there to give me ideas and support where I need it. She helped me come up with filler content for this part (she pretty much gave me some of the ideas for the filler parts of finding the shards. I had the ending written, but couldn't figure out what should go in between and she helped.) so I really couldn't have done it without her! I'm also about to answer some questions that might help with side notes in the plot, so skip ahead from here if you think you don't need to know anything. And now moving on to guest reviewer, Rockster, and his questions in the last review, because I literally do read every review and answer questions that are in them. He asks about Mario's too small ? And doesn't quite get it. That was my attempt at a joke to where its better to block out the memory (like that time when I walked in on my older brother into his room and found him picking at his… and there you have it, something I block out and would rather not think about again.) and originally I was going to say he was trying to wear a Speedo that was too small, but I realized how horrible that is and decided to leave it up to the very twisted imagination of the reader what he was wearing. Rockster wonders why I turned Waluigi into an albatoss. My thought process for that was that at first I really didn't have a fate planned out for him and he pretty much would have gotten away with it, but then the photo came in and I decided that Waluigi deserved something horrible to happen to him. Originally I had it so he was turned into a boar and then was shot by the toad guards who went into the house, but I decided that it was too much to do that. Also, there aren't any boar mushroom kingdom inhabitants other than Midbus I think, so I scrapped the boar thing. I then thought about what other animals there are and came upon the idea of a vulture because of its nature of low down dirty scavenger, which kind of fit Waluigi in my mind. But then I realized that that wasn't a Mushroom Kingdom animal, so I remembered the albatoss and put that in, because that was the closest thing to a mythical animal that I could think of. Sadly, Rockster, Neon Genesis Evangelion doesn't really cover the mythical animal part of Japanese lore. Also, the two stories that were promised to you (King Boo's Curse and I'm Not Him) haven't been put out yet. They're coming, but I'm still creating a more solid plotline to work with in King Boo's Curse and for I'm Not Him, it's about halfway written and It's just going to take awhile. But that's all for this pointless rabble, as I spent about half a month trying to finish the outline of this story for writing reference, so without further ado, loyal minions, Here's the 14_ _th_ _chapter and the 1_ _st_ _chapter of part two._

Chapter 14: Desert Flower

The sun beat down furiously upon the two heroes of the mushroom kingdom, killing all joy that was there at the beginning of the journey. Luigi was panting hard, wondering who decided that animals shouldn't be able to sweat. Both luckily and unluckily, Luigi's fur had already started to grow back from the Waluigi encounter and was now weighing him down as he went upon the desert path. Mario was much more lucky in a different respect as he was lacking in the fur department for the most part and could still sweat and have that cool him off. Luigi had given up walking long ago due to his short and stubby legs not doing so well at keeping up, so Mario carried him, about evening things out. Although Mario held the benefit of sweating, he also had the disadvantage of carrying Luigi and an empty backpack that covered his tail. Even though the little fox kit couldn't have weighed more than five pounds, he felt like he weighed 100! Mario also now donned a red turban in order to hide his ears, which clearly wasn't helping in the heat. He always hated traversing deserts to rescue the princess. Just when Mario passed out from pushing himself too hard and Luigi was howling away, he saw the most glorious orange moving towards him.

XxX

"Wake up boys!" cried a cheerful voice as Professor E. Gadd shook both Mario and Luigi awake.

Both looked like zombies as they opened up their eyes slowly with bags under them and a fresh layer of stubble on Mario's face. Both groaned as they got up and begrudgingly dragged themselves to breakfast that the professor had prepared for them lovingly. Mario only perked up once he had his coffee, but Luigi wasn't so lucky. Unfortunately, nobody knew if coffee would harm the small fox kit, so they figured it was better to not chance anything.

"It's alright Luigi. When we get the shards and change you back, you won't have to worry about any of this anymore," Mario quickly mussed up the fur on Luigi's head, "Besides, you don't want to stay short forever, do you?"

" _As if you're the one to talk, shortie,_ " Luigi snorted, " _You're not the one who has to deal with being this tired._ "

"Shortie? Oh, I'll show you!"

" _Bite me._ "

The professor had left the room moments earlier to grab his own breakfast and when he came back in the room he found Mario holding Luigi in a playful headlock, while Luigi was biting down on Mario's shoe and was repeatedly hitting him with his tail.

"I leave you two alone for one minute! You know what, I'm not even going to ask what I'm seeing here. Tsk tsk, all because of coffee, I presume?"

"You know it, Gadd," said Mario as he released Luigi and both scampered back to their breakfasts, Luigi to his dog food and Mario to his waffles and bacon.

The professor couldn't help but smile at the brothers as they ate their breakfasts but continued to exchange playful challenging glances with each other. It was nice to see two brothers who were also best friends.

"Need anything from home, Mario?" asked the professor when he finished his cup of coffee, "I'm working on a teleportation device that can change matter into cubicula data blocks and teleport them from place to place. It's still experimental, so I can't send people yet, but I can grab anything you need from your house, like clothing and other things. I call the device the digitizer right now until I come up with a different name."

"I only need one pair of overalls with a red shirt from the house and Luigi doesn't need clothes, so he's fine. May I watch the process while Luigi finishes up his food?"

"I don't see why you can't watch. Just stand back while it does its work, though."

The professor lead Mario to a corner in a different room and took a video camera with multiple things taped and glued onto it and set it up facing the wall before wiring a wheel chair battery up to it. The professor then moved over to a nearby laptop and began typing furiously before a ding sounded. Mario watched in amazement as the camera whizzed to life before his eyes and spit out red and blue cubes that quickly solidified into an extra change of clothing.

"That's amazing!" Mario said as he grabbed his clothes, eager to get out of the weird white clothes the professor gave him the previous night.

"I call it the digitizer until I come up with a better name. Now that I think about it those cubes look sort of like pixels… Oh, and I have one more thing to give to you," said the professor as he reached over to the side and grabbed a hiking backpack and handed it to Mario.

Mario looked it over curiously and put it on his back. Mario realized the purpose when he felt a hole in the back for his tail.

"It's so that your tail will be covered out in public at least until the transformation progresses far enough to where you'll have to adopt a new identity. But this should make it so you can go out in public without fearing discovery, not to mention that you can hold your stuff easier as a bonus. Also, Luigi left a pair of his clothes over here, so I cleaned them and added them to the pack for when he changes back. And I added a little special something-something for the road, so don't open them until you're traveling. Now I suggest you go and get ready for the coming journey."

Mario quickly rushed off to the bathroom to get dressed, happy to strip off those thin white cloths that stuck to him very easily, and tried to put on his overalls, only to feel immense pain from his tail refusing to go in.

" _Judging by your grunts of pain, I'm guessing you're having problems getting your overalls on, so I suggest you try perhaps cutting a neat hole in the back for your tail. Just saying._ " said a snout that was partially sticking underneath the door.

"I didn't ask you, Luigi," snorted Mario as he grabbed some scissors and started cutting a neat hole for his tail.

Finally Mario was dressed and ready to rumble as he grabbed the backpack and exited the backpack. E. Gadd was sitting at the table holding Luigi and sipping a cup of tea and looking at a paper sitting on said table.

"Okay Mario, before you go rushing out into the unknown, we need to do a bit of strategizing. I know this isn't normal for you, but I believe that Luigi agrees with me when I say that this is necessary for this adventure and we should get this out of the way."

Mario walked over to the table and sat down on one of the chairs and saw a crude drawing of Arret done in red crayon on the back of a restaurant placement map.

"What?" asked the professor, noticing the weird look on Mario's face, "I don't necessarily have physical maps lying around everywhere, now do I? It's what I could do in about five minutes!" Mario just rolled his eyes.

"Okay, so what are the options here?"

The professor grabbed out a green crayon. "Okay, so I guess it's a matter of how you guys want to do this," the professor drew a line straight from where they were to Sarassaland. "This is the public route that everyone travels along, or option one, whichever you like. It's the quickest and most direct, but it's public and who knows who is out to get you guys, and if Mario's secret is revealed, who knows what will happen. It's fast, but questionable on safety."

The professor drew a more curved line from the bunker to Sarassaland. "This is the 'scenic route'. It avoids civilization and takes much longer to travel and goes through the desert. That's the major downside, but the upside is that nobody is crazy enough to go through here, so it's almost a guarantee that you'd be alone and not have to worry about major attacks from anybody. So both routes are risky in their own respects, but the question is which risk do you want to take?"

Mario looked at the map, then down at Luigi. He had to protect him, not to mention that many people wanted his head on a stick in their front yards. If they did take the public route, who knows who would show up or if a mishap would happen to reveal Mario and make his job and life a lot harder. In the wilderness they could just try to get their as fast as possible without running out of supplies. Judging by the green curve on the map, it would only be about two to three times further to take the wilderness route. Crayon can't lie.

"I'm thinking wilderness to avoid possible conflict that could ruin everything. What do you think, little bro?"

" _Yeah, I think wilderness could be the better option here. But about how much longer would it take to travel?_ "

"My guess is that considering we're fairly close to the border here, if we took the 'public route', it would take us about three or so hours to reach the outskirts of the Sarassalandian Kingdom, so based upon that, it would take us about six to nine hours of walking, which is about nothing to us! Considering it's almost 7am now, if we leave soon, we could reach the Kingdom before the day is done! And that settles it, we're going to take the 'scenic route'!"

Mario stood up from his chair and picked up Luigi from the professor.

"And we do have a little extra supplies to last us to Sarassaland," said Mario as he headed towards the ladder leading to the exit.

"Good! Oh, and don't forget to take this so we can communicate. Just don't use it until you're in the city so the battery doesn't fry."

The professor handed Mario a GameBoy SP with all sorts of weird wires and other things sticking out of it.

"Thank you, professor!" Said Mario as he slipped the thing into his pocket and began to head towards the exit once again, "We'll arrive before the day is through!"

Xx- Two Days Later -xX

"' _We'll arrive before the day is through' you said. 'This is going to be easy!' you said._ "

"Oh shut up. That squiggly line lied to me."

" _Do you think we'll make it out of here alive?_ "

"As long as we keep moving, I think we might act… oh!"

Mario's legs suddenly gave out and he lay on the desert sand unmoving.

" _Mario? Mario!_ " Luigi yelped, desperately nuzzling, licking, and even biting gently to try to bring Mario to consciousness, but the man lay in the sand unmoving, only a slight rise and fall indicating that he was still alive. He had pushed himself for too hard for too long.

Luigi didn't know what to do. Mario was talking just fine moments before, but in retrospect, Luigi realized that Mario's speech was starting to slur slightly, indicating something was seriously wrong. Luigi looked on into the horizon that was starting to turn a vivid orange from sunset, and saw another more tangible orange coming towards him. It was the most glorious sight that could come to Luigi's eyes and he let out a long and loud howl in order to make sure the shape was coming his way. The figure finally made it to the duo and it wasn't until Luigi was in the embrace of warm arms that he realized how tired he was and drifted off to a peaceful rest.

XxX

Mario awoke to cold water being splashed in his face.

"I told you, Luigi, it's not funny to do…" Mario murmured angrily until he sat up and felt the soreness all over him which froze him in his tracks. He felt warm sand beneath him and a presence looming over him. Mario slowly looked up and found himself face to face with Princess Daisy, who was holding Luigi and looming over him with a mix of concern and some other emotion he could not name.

"I want an explanation from the top. Now." said Daisy semi-demandingly.

"What are you talking about?"

Daisy held up a small pocket mirror, reflecting Mario without his turban on and his ears exposed to the world, the top raccoon half folded back.

"It's a long story…" Mario started.

 _And that's the end of the shoooooooooooooow! It's good to be back, let me tell you. I'm now fully equipped with a completed plot to finish writing this and I'm ready! Sorry this chapter was kind of short, but I gave myself a deadline to start the story up again by, so I had to abridge this chapter in order to meet the deadline. Life is getting busy for me, but in about three weeks I will get freed up a lot and I can start updating like crazy again. I hope you enjoyed this and will keep your eye out for future chapters. Also, "Echoes of Yesterday" is coming soon, but I'm drawing up the cover right now and it will have the first chapter written in about a week. Please leave a review and as always, criticisms are more than welcome. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And remember to bring your own toilet paper roll when using truck stop bathrooms. The provided stuff is nasty…_


	15. Chapter 15: Found

_And I'm back and on a computer again! Let me tell you that writing with the android app was not fun at all. This is Norman Whitesmith finally resuming work on Kitsune Curse! All other works that I started on the phone (Luigi's Wacky Adventure and Adored By All) are going to be finished there and eventually get formatted correctly on a computer later when I'm not really working on stories. So allow me, Norman, to let you back into the world of Kitsune Curse. So without further ado, here's chapter fifteen where we resume the quest for the first star shard!_

Chapter 15: Found

Mario could only stare at Daisy as she was in his face demanding answers that were hard to articulate. Daisy continued to meet his gaze steadily, waiting for an explanation. Mario felt his tail twitch in anxiety and noticed that he still had the backpack on and the tail was now visible for Daisy to see. Daisy's eyes widened a bit when she saw Mario's tail come into view, twitching from what only could be nervousness.

"So you have a tail now too? I'm still waiting for the explanation," said Daisy, foot now tapping.

" _Mario, just tell her. I don't think that she's going to tell anyone if we don't want her to. Besides, you don't exactly rely on someone to where you'd need to be kicked out!_ " barked Luigi.

"I already knew that Luigi, it's just that this is hard to explain and I don't exactly know where to begin!"

" _Well, try starting after Peach told you that Toadsworth wanted me gone for the good of the kingdom."_

Daisy watched, confused, as it seemed that Mario was having a conversation with the small fox kit in her arms, even though the fox kit was only making small barking noises. Daisy then looked back at Mario, and looked at his ears, examining them a bit more than when she pulled off the turban and got the shock of looking at them. His ears seemed a bit bigger than normal and were a bit higher up on his head than they should have been. Other than that, the bottom half of his ears were completely normal and looked like any human's ears should look. But about halfway up, the ears looked a bit more animalistic with black fuzz growing on them and them also having a distinguished point at the end. This seemed to be the most logical explanation of why he was presumably understanding and talking to Luigi.

"So you can understand each other now," asked Daisy, searching for clarity.

"Yes," replied Mario in a matter of manner, "And I think I figured out how to tell you the events, so here goes…"

Mario began telling his story, Daisy surprised at Toadsworth's cruelty for wanting to kick Luigi out, but then admiring Mario's drive for wanting to keep his brother. Mario watched Daisy's emotions fluctuate as he told the tale, almost wincing from her anger as he told about him leaving Luigi behind, believing it wasn't him. Then, Luigi began to bark and Mario translated what he was saying so she knew about what happened in Waluigi's house. As Luigi explained what happened, a look of pain crossed Daisy's face, the pain showing on her face increasing when Luigi told her to look at his scars other than the one that was on his face. Daisy was relieved to a degree when Luigi finished his tale and Mario continued narrating how he fixed up Luigi and they both went to talk to Toadsworth. Anger resumed its pace across Daisy's face when they told of how Waluigi, in a way, got away with maiming Luigi. Mario then told of the quest for something that might not even exist in order to fix them both. Finally, Mario finished talking, leaving Daisy to think about what she heard.

"I can't believe that that Waluigi psycho got away with doing that to Luigi! Why didn't you show Peach what happened to you and tell her that the same happened to Waluigi? He deserves pain for what he did!"

"Unfortunately, it isn't that simple Daisy. As I explained, we're searching for a cure that might not even exist. If I told Peach, who knows what Toadsworth would do to me. Unfortunately, I might lose my position as hero or be looked down upon by the people. One thing that many don't understand is that the people need complete belief in their hero for the hero to get the job done correctly. Although life is pretty peaceful in the kingdom, Bowser does attack a lot and if the citizens didn't have complete hope and trust in me, then they would lose all of their hope and not even bother to try to continue living as normal, rebuilding the town when another attack inevitably comes. I need to be there for them so that they have a reason to continue living, so they have someone to look up to, and most of all, so they have a hero. How would the people feel if the 'infallible' Mario made a mistake and he's going off on a vast journey to try and fix it? There are many issues with that happening!" Mario continued.

Daisy realized that what Mario was saying was indeed true, as he continued.

"First off, the toads are a gossipy bunch, so telling them to keep this a secret wouldn't work and talk would be all over town. Second, word would reach the enemy troops, that is, if they don't already know, as I'm sure Bowser knows at this point due to Kamek's involvement. Third, although I do know the basic extent of what's happening to me, I honestly don't know how much it's going to debilitate me, if it does at all. If I lose my jumping ability due to putting on the extra weight I was told to expect, as well as getting shorter, than that kind of makes it hard to go rescue Peach and about does me in! Heck, my overalls are already beginning to feel a bit tight! I will tell the people what happened once this is all over, but for now, it's better for them to believe in their hero. Also, how did you come out here to find us? How did you know where to find us."

Daisy saw Mario's point. Although many saw him as a bit dumb, she could now clearly see that there was more brain behind his goombas-mashing than what others saw.

"I actually got a call from the professor, telling me that you guys rushed off into the desert without proper supplies, such as enough water, to last you very long. He also told me how he miscalculated the distance by taking what he called the scenic route, and that chances are, you guys wouldn't make it that long if I didn't come out and try to save you guys. He gave me your coordinates and said that if one of you was out that there was a bundle he put in your backpack that would help. He didn't tell me other stuff such as why you were coming out here, although I know that now, so I just set out and found you guys. You were about 10 miles short of the farthest outreaches of the kingdom. Also, it turns out, the something he put in your bag was cookies he made with one-up essence inside it. You're lucky he packed that, because you had bad sunstroke, Mario, and would have actually died if I didn't have that to shove down your throat."

Mario paused for a second, a bit shaken that he actually had almost died.

"And furthermore, if Luigi hadn't gotten on your back and howled, I probably would have walked right by you. But for now, it's night and I believe the best course of action is to make it back to the castle so we can rest and see about the star shard."

And with that the three heroes made their way back to the castle.

"And Mario?"

"Yes Daisy?"

"Leave the desert crossing to the experts please, sweetie. We know how to cross them without dying."

Mario was dumbfounded how the princess was able to roast him that badly. Soon, everyone was laughing as they walked, not noticing the shimmer in space behind them as a certain Magikoopa teleported off to go give his master a report.

 _And that was a rather short chapter, but one that exposed a lot! Now in the next chapter the search for the shard begins, but as always, complications are going to come up. The search will probably take up the next two chapters and I hope you enjoy it! Now for some explanations of other plot things of the past. First off, I mentioned in the beginning, that the budding super leaves that were used in Luigi's formula and not Mario's had slightly different effects. What I meant by that, was pretty much, that was what made Luigi seemingly younger, which will come into play later, believe me. Since Mario only got a single adult leaf, he didn't get any younger. Also, now for a dropped plot point. Originally, the professor got some of the artificial serum from Mario on him too, and changed slightly into a goat (inset line "I guess people were right when they called me an old goat!"), but I dropped that because it really served no purpose to advancing the plot. Daisy was also going to play a more prominent role throughout the whole story instead of pretty much only being around for this section of the story, but I dropped that because the main focus is on Mario and Luigi and their brotherly bond and love. Also another interesting fact, is that since Mario and Luigi's height is so disputed, I gave them their own heights that I set that applies to all my stories unless I say otherwise. I gave Mario the height 5'3" , which is how tall I am (yes, I'm short), and Luigi 6'5", for no exact reason, except that that is around the height that my older brother has. And one more fun fact, Mario actually does have a well-crafted character in the games, but nobody ever gets to see it really since he doesn't get to talk. There is a youtube video of an interview with Mario for the sports mix for the Wii. It was interesting and it shows Mario's personality as sort of childish and happy-go-lucky. It portrays him as a great guy and friend to have, but also having a bit of a competitive streak. And Mario actually explains why he invites Bowser to sporting and go-kart events. "You know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But they also say that if your enemy is a giant turtle monster, keep him veeery close." So that's a glimpse into his Nintendo-given personality, but as this is fanfiction, I like to go off model and give him a different one. And to be perfectly honest, this chapter is really just here to show that I'm back in the game with my computer and can type again. I will go back to writing longer chapters soon. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And don't forget that although using Microsoft Works Word Processor is about the jankest thing in the world, it's still better than using a phone with no spell check._


	16. Chapter 16: It's a Trap

_And Im-a back again! Whether you like it or not! Chapter 16 is where the main story action truly begins, and I, Norman, am here to give it to you! And a note on what Rockster said about not really seeing how Mario being fat interferes with his jumping: It was more of a what if situation in his mind that he was explaining to Daisy and he isn't going to necessarily lose it. Although he already is considered fat (which I like to poke fun at a little), he can still perform his hero's duty, but he is getting shorter as well as gaining weight, so Mario can't tell if the combination of the two will affect his jumping power, though he still has it right now. And also, Mario isn't going full Tanuki (yet). Other than that, I have nothing to say right now, so without further ado, let's dive into Chapter 16._

Chapter 16: It's a Trap!

King Bowser. Formidable leader of the Dark Lands. A conqueror to be feared. A man (turtle thingy) that keeps getting shoved into lava, yet gets up later with a mild headache like it was nothing. Bowser the Rotten. Bowser the Terrible. Bowser the Great. Bowser, a king presently in his room… kissing a pillow that he taped a picture of Peach to? Although Bowser was one for more destruction and less words, he did have a hole in his heart that he was trying to fix. Clawdia Koopa, his wife, had died years ago and left him broken, with nothing but the egg of his only biological son. Of course Bowser tried his best to cope, but nothing brought back the wonders of his wife. Her smile, her caring, and most of all, the love that only she could give after a hard day. It wasn't until one day that he saw the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach, that he felt something again. He had to have her. But she would never love a monster like him! What could he do? Oh wait, just kidnap her a lot. She has to love that! Plus, if he was successful, which why shouldn't he be, he'd also get her kingdom as a bonus!

It was that very day that he kidnapped her for the first time that those stinking plumbers came to Arret, ruining everything, and the short and fat one, who Bowser learned to be named Mario, captured the affections of the princess himself. Mario always ruined everything. That stupid plumber from Earth always got in his way at every turn. But at least he invited him to go-karting events. But still, Bowser vowed to eliminate that stupid plumber and take his love. It didn't matter how underhanded he would have to be to accomplish such a feat, as all is fair in love and war. And today just might be the day Bowser gets what he wanted.

Bowser was sitting in his room, smooching on the pillow when suddenly he heard the tinkling noise that indicated teleportation magic. Bowser however, didn't react soon enough until it was too late and Kamek was left staring at him. Bowser tried to play it cool and flip over the pillow and pretend that nothing was happening. Kamek decided that once this conversation was over to completely forget what he had seen.

"W-what.. Ahem… What are you doing here, Kamek? Report."

"Well, your surliness, it seems that there's a cure and the stupid Mario brothers are going out to get it."

"WHAT?" Bowser roared making Kamek shudder for a second.

"S-s-sir, there is actually good news. The cure is a shattered star and they have to collect all four pieces before using it. I was able to read some of the book in the crazy old man's arms and saw the second clue. If we go there before the brothers, then we can interfere. But of course, we would also create a small distraction while those stupid Mario brothers are getting the first shard in order to stall them while we get the second. The riddle that was written on the paper said the second shard was 'in a place where forest spirits meet and mingle'. I'll research that as soon as I am done here."

"Yes," said Bowser, musing slightly before suddenly remembering something, "And are you preparing the thing I asked for?"

"Yes, sire. Allow me to show you my progress," Kamek said as he began to lazily float down the hall to his laboratory with Bowser following behind.

Kamek flung open the door and rushed over to a lab table and picked up a vial that had a yellowish tint to it.

"This is the potion you wanted. It's almost done, but a few tweaks need to be done," Kamek then shuffled some things on the desk and pulled out a red leaf, "And this will eliminate all problems that will come. It's not done yet, but it's also close. All we have to do is bide our time…"

Bowser let out a snort of annoyance. "You never told me about the red leaf. What the heck is that going to do? Give Mario allergies to death? How is that supposed to do anything?"

Kamek adjusted his glasses, feeling no fear towards Bowser due to knowing that his victory was at hand soon. "I actually messed up in my last plan. Although the first thing I made gave the desired effect, even though it affected the wrong person, it exposed a huge flaw in the plan. As much as I hate to admit it, those Mario brothers do have a shred of intelligence to them," Kamek noticed a somewhat annoyed expression on Bowser's face and quickly stuttered in, "B-b-but not anywhere near as smart as you, your vileness."

Kamek quickly regained his composure and continued. "Anyways, the one flaw in my plan was exposed. I should have known that the green shadow, even if he is seemingly afraid of his own shadow, would try to help his brother. And it was because of his, what I would call 'intelligence', that I failed to get Mario with the second serum. And then I realized that all I had to do was figure out a way to mess with the mind and reform it. That's exactly how I created the potion you wanted me to make, though it isn't quite finished yet. It was easy because I realized what makes a person who they are scientifically is their mind and the memories it contains. All I have to do is finish the formula I'm making that will erase and reform memories, effectively creating a new personality, though I'm not done creating it yet. But I did manage to find some left over budding Super Leaves lying around, so if I mix that with the new mind-altering formula and create an artificial Super Leaf with the full effects of the first serum and the mind altering properties to be picked up by an unsuspecting plumber… let's just say that Mario can't save the kingdom if the plumber known as Mario doesn't technically exist anymore."

Bowser nodded, intrigued by this new approach to eliminate his number one enemy. "So how long until it's done?"

"Well, again, it isn't really near done yet and is still in its beta stages. It'll be awhile until it's ready, but again, we just have to bide our time and lie in wait…"

XxX

"Are we there yet?" asked an exasperated plumber as he just wanted to go to bed.

"That's like the tenth time you've asked within the last minute, and the answer is still no! We aren't in the castle yet, are we?"

"No, but I'm getting tired!"

"You're supposed to be the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, no less, yet you keep complaining like a child!"

The trio continued walking along, the desert air surprisingly crisp and cool within the night air, the stars sparkling in the vast sky clear and unpolluted by city lights. Sarassaland was always one of the more old-fashioned kingdoms that liked to keep the lights off at night and keep technology fairly simple. That meant no streetlights, and unfortunately it was a new moon that night. That meant no real light, which unfortunately left poor Mario, who was unaccustomed to Sarassalandian streets, bumbling along and crashing face first into a wall of about every third building. This of course was amusing Daisy, but when Mario decided to start asking if they were at the castle endlessly to even the score, this left Daisy less amused. Luigi had given up on staying awake long ago and resigned to sleeping atop Daisy's head, functioning much like a furry little hat. Daisy still felt it hard to believe that the fox kit balanced and sleeping atop her head was Luigi. She wanted human Luigi back, no matter how cute fox Luigi was. As much as Daisy was more of a Tomboy, feelings was one subject that Daisy couldn't muscle her way through. How desperately she wanted to tell Luigi how she felt about him, but now the time was past for that and Daisy had to hope that Luigi could go back to being human so she could tell him and hopefully have it amount to something.

"Are we there yet?" Mario's voice pierced the air again, derailing Daisy's thought train.

"For the last time," Daisy said, her blue eyes almost glowing with anger as she looked straight into Mario's eyes, boring into his soul, "N-"

Daisy was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't even notice that they were approaching the castle gates until she had walked face first into the wall while replying to Mario, luckily not losing or waking Luigi in the process.

Mario only gave her a smug look as he passed through the gates. "Although you may be the expert of traveling deserts, I at least know that you can't expect to walk straight through walls, princess."

Mario - 2

Daisy - 1

Daisy could only stare after Mario in shock for a few seconds before she recomposed herself, adjusted Luigi, and walked after Mario again. She wasn't even mad.

Finally, the heroes, one a bit more roasted than the others, arrived in the front of the massive Sarassaland castle. It was much bigger than Peach's and crafted mostly out of smooth and fine sand stone. The lights were all off, however, which puzzled Mario, who had never really been to Sarassaland except for the time he had saved Daisy once nearly four years ago.

"In case you're wondering, the lights are off to conserve power. Believe it or not, the castle gets its power by hydro electronic means. The river powering the castle is going through a bit of a drought, though, so we're saving some power by turning off the lights. Which, luckily that works for us, since I feel that it would be better if nobody knew of your arrival right now. And like the Mushroom Kingdom, there isn't really very much crime here at all and we don't have to deal with Bowser, so there aren't any guards at night."

Daisy very quietly went over to the large castle door and opened it silently, beckoning Mario in. The three very quickly snuck down the halls, careful to not disturb anything or make a noise. Suddenly, Daisy reached out her arm and stopped Mario before opening up the door and beckoning him inside. Mario stepped inside and gazed in awe at the room that the moonlight illuminated. It was perfect down to the finest details in gold and other precious materials, and had a perfectly crafted bed against the furthest wall. It must be Daisy's room.

Daisy moved next to Mario. "I'll let you spend the night in my room. You're less likely to be found here, as they try to give me some privacy. Just sleep somewhere in the corner or something."

Although Mario was intentionally being a jerk to Daisy with the "are we there yet"'s , he wasn't kidding when he said he was tired. Mario quickly went to a nice looking corner of the room and set down the bag, not really caring if it was a proper pillow. Mario lay down, happy to be able to rest in safety, but slightly shivering from the cold of the desert. Mario suddenly felt something warm being slipped into his arms gently. As soon as the warm thing moved, Mario subconsciously realized it was Luigi and held him closer, Luigi also moving closer. Daisy couldn't help but smile at the two brothers snuggling each other for warmth, but was overcome with a yawn herself, indicating that she needed to rest too. Daisy climbed into her bed, and didn't realize how tired she was until she lay her head down on the pillow and drifted off into a nice restful sleep.

XxX

Daisy was having a wondrous dream about running through the forests with Luigi, human once again, by her side, when Luigi disappeared from her side without a trace. Daisy looked around the forest, but winced in horror when she saw the emerald green pine trees start to fade away into a dark and ominous grey. Suddenly, she heard a small high pitched howl of fear. Looking to her right, she saw Luigi standing in a cage, fox once more, with the scars that he had shown her earlier open once again and bleeding profusely. Luigi's eyes were barely open and a dull grey instead of the lively blue that was usually in his eyes. As Luigi started to fall over in his cage, Daisy tried to run over to him and save him, but she felt an invisible force holding her back.

"Luigi!" Daisy cried in anguish as she saw Luigi hit the floor of his cage and not getting up, the heavy rising and falling of his flank coming to a dead stop. Luigi was dead. The force that was holding Daisy in place suddenly released, causing her to fall to the forest floor in tears. As she looked down, Daisy realized in horror that the floor was made out of bugs, as they started to crawl all over her, going in her mouth and crawling down her throat, crawling everywhere and suffocating her. Daisy felt another sensation come over her that was different from the rest. It was as if soft sandpaper was being rubbed across her face. The nightmare forest faded away to darkness, leaving Daisy laughing about the ticklish sensation across her face, relieved that she didn't feel the bugs choking her.

"Daisy!" she heard a shouting whisper, "wake up!"

Daisy's eyes shot open to see a wet snout in her face. Luigi had crawled on top of her, with a concerned look on his face, and was licking away her tears. She had been crying in her sleep. Daisy's hands shot out and pulled Luigi into a suffocating embrace.

"Promise me that you'll never leave me, alright?" Daisy said as she stroked Luigi. Luigi licked her hand, signifying to her that he promised.

Daisy didn't realize that Mario was staring at her until she looked up and saw him with a giant grin on his face.

"What?" Daisy said defensively, "I had a bad dream!"

Mario simply clicked his tongue and turned around, muttering something about "made for each other" under his breath.

"Wait, why are you wearing green?" Daisy asked, noticing Mario wearing Luigi's shirt underneath his overalls, which Daisy also noticed looking a little tight, as well as wearing Luigi's hat.

Mario turned again to face her. "It would make sense that Luigi, the man who has a crush on you-" Mario was interrupted by a bark from Luigi, that Daisy guessed probably said "do not!" or something along those lines, "Ahem- anyways, it would make more sense of him being here, rather than Mario, who had only come here once to rescue you. Besides, I never met your father before, while Luigi has and probably has it good with him."

" _Um, actually-_ " Luigi began to bark, " _He really has it out for me and hates me with every fiber of his being._ "

"Nonsense," cried Mario optimistically, "I bet that he's hard on you because he's teasing you and secretly likes you, but is just testing you!"

Daisy and Luigi exchanged a worried glance. Daisy guessed, based on Mario's response, that Luigi tried to explain how much her father, King Richard, hated him. Mario clearly didn't believe him, but both Daisy and Luigi knew that he really did hate Luigi, for no exact reason, but hated him none the less. This was going to be a disaster. But the look on Mario's face said that nothing was going to talk him out of doing this.

" _But Mario, you have to keep the sleeves rolled up on my shirt in order for it to fit. How are you going to explain that? Not to mention your ears and the black stripe pattern in your hair. How are you going to explain any of this?_ "

"I can come up with something, and the hat covers the ears and hair mostly. And Daisy, do you have any idea where the star shard is?"

Daisy rolled her eyes to Mario's happy-go-lucky attitude. "There are legends of a king buried beneath this castle who had been buried with his greatest treasure, a shard of a great star. That seems to fit your description. There is an entrance to the tomb beneath the castle, but it's never been opened up due to some pretty serious warnings that scare off any Lara Crofts out there, not to mention that really anybody without bad intent never really had a reason to go down there. But I can show you the entrance. We should probably get moving. But how are we going to hide the real Luigi? I don't think dad will like having a small fox inside the castle."

Mario paused a second before snapping his fingers. "I got it! Princess, lean down," Daisy leaned down and Mario picked up Luigi and put him on the back of Daisy's neck, "Okay Luigi, go limp and close your eyes, because you're now Daisy's scarf and scarves don't move. There we go, Daisy. Nobody can tell, and the color of Luigi's fur really compliments your orange dress!"

Mario, a lady's man even when he isn't even trying.

"Now, letsa go! Time's a wasting and we need to get this star shard fast."

Mario grabbed Daisy by the hand and almost dragged her out of her room, grinning like an idiot the entire time. Seeing this made Daisy grateful for Luigi, as he always kept his respectful distance from her and almost tripped over himself whenever Daisy needed something. He was never forceful and always gentle. Although Mario was a nice man for Peach, he wasn't Daisy's cup of tea. Luigi was, but again, it's not like she could say anything to the little fox at the moment. Mario got lost pretty quickly in the castle, leaving Daisy to take over the lead and get him to the stairs. Unfortunately, the route to the stairs went straight across the opening to the throne room. Also, King Richard was an early riser.

"Daisy, my favorite daughter, come in here and see me!" boomed King Richard's jolly voice from the hallway.

Daisy felt a cold sweat come across her as she went into the throne room. It wasn't as if she had a choice in the matter. Daisy noticed Mario following her and felt her panic rise even higher. King Richard had a jolly look on his face. That is, until he saw who he thought was Luigi.

"You're still seeing this plumber loser, Daisy?" asked King Richard with an amount of venom in his voice, "I thought we went over that this plebian isn't royalty."

"We're not dating, daddy," sang Daisy, "He's just a friend."

"Come closer, green guy," barked King Richard with even more venom.

"With pleasure, King Dick!" said Mario as he went closer, not noticing the look of horror on Daisy's face for his attempt to be informal, or the look of utter shock on the king's face. Not to mention that even though the name "Dick" comes from "Richard", it can be taken the complete wrong way!

The look of hatred on her Dad's face was enough to make her, the tomboy who would rip off the face of anyone who disrespected her, scared.

"So we meet again, Luigi," said King Richard in his naturally loud voice, "Seems as if you've grown some guts since we've last met."

"Yep. I'm ready to take care of Daisy!"

"And it seems as if you've grown some guts in more ways than one," said King Richard as he poked Mario's gut that already looked more distended than it normally did, giving him the appearance of looking overweight instead of chubby like it used to. Mario's facial expression turned from one of confident joy to one of confusion and hurt. Nobody mentioned his weight. Nobody. Mario didn't even realize he started whimpering, sounding like a wounded raccoon, until King Richard began exploiting that weakness too.

"Aha, as I thought, you only grew some guts in one way. You know, it's been bothering me how much you're around my daughter, and you clearly think you can date her. But the only date you are getting is a date with my royal porcelain throne. Capiche?"

Mario had never felt so ashamed of… well, being himself before. Mario began to sob in his shame so intensely to where Daisy rushed over and put her arm around his shoulder.

"Daddy!" Daisy yelled in a voice she never thought possible to yell at to her dad, "That crossed so many lines. I'm going out and you need to be nicer to Luigi! He tries and makes me feel special more than any dates with princes you try and set up for me! So lay off!"

Daisy slowly led the still sobbing Mario out of the throne room gently, the appalled King Richard unable to say anything to Daisy, as she had never lashed out like that.

Daisy quickly rushed down the stairs with Mario and made it to the basement floor. Mario had stopped sobbing and regained his usual stone-cold demeanor.

"You alright?" asked Daisy.

"I'm fine. But I guess Luigi wasn't lying or exaggerating when he said that King Richard hated him with everything he had. So where's the door to the tomb?"

"Right here," Daisy pointed to a stone door on one wall that had an odd blue handprint on a panel to the side, "And it needs the touch of a royal woman to open it, which I will do now."

Daisy went over to the door, Luigi appearing to have fallen asleep on her, and put her hand on the handprint. Blue light snaked out of the hand print, making both Mario and Daisy's jaws drop as the light moved towards the door and the door lifted as if by magic. Dust sprayed everywhere, but as it cleared it revealed a small compartment with a skeleton in it holding a sparkling star shard. It exists! The prism star exists! Mario rushed forwards into the compartment.

"Wow, I was expecting it to be harder than this with giant traps and closing walls and stuff, but this was easy!" Mario said as he grabbed the shard out of the skeleton's hands without as much of a second thought.

"Mario, no! It might be a trap!" Daisy cried as she accidentally removed her hand from the hand print, causing the blue light to come to a halt and the heavy stone door to slam down in front of her, blocking Mario in the room.

 _It's so great to be back and writing long chapters again! Man, Kamek now has it out completely for Mario and it looks as if he's going to have to be careful now. And the next clue I mentioned, I decided will take place in Dimble Wood, but what's going to happen is going to be a surprise until this arc is over. I wrote the Bowser section because I never really gave Bowser an intro section like I did the others, so I felt it was necessary to give him some character. Also, I believe that Daisy's dad's name came from Nintendrawer, so I didn't name him Richard, but it's the "popular name to use". And as for the title, I don't watch family guy, but it was a fitting title. And Mario was wearing a backpack the entire time, masking his tail from King Richard. I'd also like to thank SpicyAvogato for drawing really great fan art of one of my other fics. Check out their DA account. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And remember, if every pork chop was perfect, we wouldn't have hotdogs!_


	17. Chapter 17: The Stone

_It has been forever, my friends! It is me, the great Whitesmith, back again to bring you more Kitsune Curse! In a funny way, I was intending to get this story finished last summer, but things came up and that obviously didn't happen. I want to dedicate more time to finishing this, so let's hope that's a resolution I can keep. My recent author notes have been shorter because I wrote them after I wrote the story, which I am usually dead tired at that point and don't care how long the note is. But right now, this is being written before I make the chapter. I also started writing this chapter on December 20th, so let's see how long it takes me to write this! So without further ado, candy canes and penguins, the long awaited Chapter 17._

XxX

Chapter 17: The Stone

XxX

Kamek hovered over the Sarasaland castle, a smile plastered across his aged beak. He had just visited Dimble Woods to interfere with getting the second shard of the Prism Star only to find that there was more to the Prism Star and its origins. After making a new ally, Kamek promptly left to Sarasaland, ready to destroy those pesky brothers once and for all. Truth be told Kamek was expecting to succeed at stopping the brothers here and have Dimble Woods be a fail-safe in case something goes wrong.

But then again, Luigi got turned into a baby animal, tiny, and not to mention helpless in a good number of respects, yet he was still doing a great job at impeding all of Kamek's progress, with or without Mario's help.

Kamek's smile turned to a frown briefly at this thought. "You won't win this time!" Kamek screamed for no particular reason, shaking his fist at a cloud. With a start, Kamek realized the cloud had eyes and was staring at him.

"W-wait, I wasn't talking to y-"

"Don't you have better things to do than yell at a cloud, old man?" asked the cloud from no discernable mouth below floating over to Kamek and turning an angry grey.

Kamek knew where this was going.

"Wait, I'm so-"

A sudden boom of thunder shot from the cloud that positioned itself next to Kamek's ear opening.

"Ouch!" Kamek yelled, his hearing on his left completely shot. "Now I won't be able to hear for at least a few days out of- oh wait, I have a Magikoopa staff meeting tomorrow and Bowser has one of his 'famous' speeches prepared. Can you do the other ear?"

The cloud floated over to the other side of Kamek's head and boomed again.

"Thanks!" yelled Kamek a bit too loud, unable to hear very much.

The cloud nodded at Kamek before resuming its position in the sky. "Now where was I?" Kamek asked himself as he looked down at the Sarasaland castle. "You Mario Brothers think you're so clever and capable, but you're about to find otherwise!"

With an evil maniacal bout of laughter, Kamek stared at the castle and made a short plan. There were only two guards out front due to the kingdom having a very low crime-rate and typically no issues with security. They could easily be taken care of and once inside there should only be about ten guards placed about the castle. Kamek could deal with those if needed, but for now he just had to get in and look for a leverage point against the brothers.

Kamek, knowing how to take care of the guards, got to work and landed behind a dumpster in town, grabbing his magic wand and reciting an appearance changing incantation, taking on the guise of an old hag.

' _Nothing like going with the classics,_ ' Kamek thought to himself as he magically created two ripe looking apples, looking very tantalizing to eat but in reality one bite would cause mind control.

Kamek quickly shuffled up to the front of the castle, pulling the hood over his head as he walked and placing the apples in his pocket. Kamek also removed two hearing aids that appeared in his pocket since he still wanted to hear, yet he wanted to miss one of Bowser's famous speeches even more. The guards stared at what appeared to be a human old lady shuffling up to them and they quickly put a smile on their faces.

"Why hello ma'am! What brings you to the Grand Sarasalandian castle?" asked one of the guards, a Toad with chartreuse spots adorning his cap with small wrinkles around his eyes indicating he smiled a lot.

"Yes, Madame, what can we do for you?" asked the other guard politely, a koopa with a purple shell.

The amount of kindness made Kamek sick to his stomach, but the deed he was planning needed to be done, so he played along. "Oh, I just wanted to thank you young men. I just love boys in uniform," said Kamek in a sweet old lady's voice, causing both guards to blush. "And since you boys are doing such a nice job, I brought you both a treat!"

Kamek pulled out the two sweet and succulent looking red apples, putting one each of the guard's hands.

The Toad looked over his apple. "Wow, I think I've seen this in a movie or heard it in a fairytale before, but I believe it ended brilliantly, so thank you ma'am!"

Both guards took a bite at the same time, their mouths curving upwards in a smile at the taste before a look of panic crossed their faces. A sudden jerk wracked their bodies before they looked up with a blank expression, their eyes glowing a light purple.

Kamek lost his disguise. "Now listen up, you follow my orders only and belong to me now. Do you understand?"

Both guards nodded.

"Now what's the most evil thing you can think of so you can do it?"

Both guards stared at him blankly.

"While I may be controlling your mind, you should be able to come up with ideas, so think!" Kamek almost screamed, but the guards continued to look at him blankely, a string of drool coming down from the Koopa's beak.

"I think we were too inocent to have an evil idea in our lives," said the Toad.

"You've got to think of something! Come on!" Kamek groaned.

"But why?"

"Because I have an evil quota to fill for the day and I haven't reached it yet!"

After a few seconds, the Koopa spoke up.

"That's it! I know of the most heinous and despicable crime of all!"

Kamek smiled a little. "Well? Out with it!"

"We can go and break some children's crayons!"

"THAT'S THE BEST YOU DUNDERHEADS CAN THINK- actually, you know what? Just go out there and do that to every child you come across."

Kamek face-palmed as the two guards ran off to do their "evil" plan, looking pretty proud of themselves for their award-winning scheme. "I'm telling you," Kamek murmered to himself, "Nobody is as evil as they used to be back in the old days."

Kamek waited for the two guards disappeared from sight before turning to the castle doors and going inside. The throne room was in sight and somebody was sitting on the throne. This was going to be surprisingly easy. Kamek, with a whistle, summoned his broomstick and hopped on, ready to do what came next.

XxX

Daisy stood at her father's side, begging him, pleading him for help to get Mario out of trouble (but of course calling him Luigi and not being too specific of what he did or where he was.). King Richard, unfortunately, wasn't going to lend his help.

"So this plumber fool you insist on having as a friend touched something and now you need-"

A sudden loud cackle sounded that caused Daisy to flinch. Mario had told her of Kamek and described him to her, but she never had the displeasure of meeting him before. Hoping she was wrong, Daisy looked up to see a Magikoopa on a broomstick looking like the very epitomy of evil. That had to be Kamek. Or it was some other schmoe on a broomstick. But since he obviously wasn't there to sell Toad-scout cookies, either way meant trouble.

"Where is he?" the Magikoopa sneered, floating closer.

As much as King Richard didn't like Luigi (or who he thought to be Luigi) and even though he didn't know exactly where the said man in green was, he sure wasn't going to give what information he had to this sketchy lunatic that had "evil" written all over him.

"I refuse to tell-"

In a millisecond, a flash of light surrounded King Richard and a bulldog sat where he once did on the throne.

"DADDY!" Daisy screamed before Kamek suddenly picked her up.

"You seem like perfect bait, and unless you keep your trap shut, you're going to share your father's fate. Capiche?" Kamek sneered, getting uncomfortably close to Daisy.

Daisy gulped, unable to reply as Kamek began to fly away through the castle, the bulldog, finally getting his bearings back, howling angrily as the villain took off with his daughter.

XxX- _Slightly earlier_

Daisy continued pounding on the stone door to no avail. How could this have happened? Daisy gave up on pounding on the door for a second and took Luigi off from around her neck, who was peacefully sleeping away (he had a bad habit of falling asleep when he wasn't "in action") and placed him on the floor. Luigi promptly woke up and by looking around, put together what had happened pretty well.

"Oh, Luigi," Daisy said with stress carrying in her voice, "what do we do?"

Luigi stared up at Daisy, unsure of how this could happen. Now a giant door made of rock weighing several tons stood between them and Mario. A muffled voice drew both of their attention.

"Guys, check around the outside of the door and see if you can see anything useful!" came Mario's voice from the inside. "I'll be waiting here and hope spiders don't start coming out of the wall!"

Daisy, realizing that seemed like a more straightforward idea than the one she had just come up with which was yelling "Open Sesame!" at the door. Daisy quickly felt along the door and felt a small indent that felt like a button. "Hello, what's thi-" Daisy pressed the button and heard things moving behind the wall before a small panel popped out towards the ground, almost taking out Luigi who was unlucky enough to be standing close. After a cacophony of barks that sounded suspiciously like swearing in a fox language, Daisy bundled Luigi back in her arms as she bent down to look.

Suddenly, blue light began snaking across the surface of the stone area and blue characters started to be illuminated magically on the surface of the stone, inside a small rectangular indent.

"Insert stone tablet?" Daisy read aloud, confused to say the very least, but that was one lead that they needed to save Mario. "But what tablet?"

As if the stone had magically heard her words, the face of the indent changed and showed a single crude looking daisy symbol.

Daisy's face lit up. "I've seen that before! It's the old kingdom crest and it's on a small piece of stone daddy holds onto! I can get that! Luigi! Stay here until I return or things go horrifically wrong!" Daisy put the small fox kit on the ground and though Luigi knew that the last part was supposed to come across and be meant as a joke, but with the current events of the adventure, it wouldn't surprise him if things did take a sudden turn for the worse.

However, it was too late as Daisy began to walk off, leaving Luigi alone in the dark.

" _Doing alright in there, Mario?_ " Luigi barked.

"Doing fine," a muffled voice replied.

" _I can't help but get a horrible feeling that things are about to go wrong. Worse than they already are, even._ "

A small laugh could be heard from the other side of the door.

"How are things possibly bad right now, Luigi? Sure I'm a bit stuck right now and had to unbutton your overalls because it was getting too tight, but we have a shard of the Prism Star! I can see it glowing slightly in the dark, which indicates magic! So even if this is somehow not the Prism Star, we sure have a magical something here and that's bound to help you somehow. I swear, little bro, sometimes you worry too muc-"

A sudden scream accompanied by the sounds of a furious dog barking floating down to the basement took Mario and Luigi's attention.

"You know what? I take it back. You worry the perfect amount. That was probably Daisy getting kidnapped or something. But I don't know about the dog, though."

Luigi sighed before looking at the giant stairs that laid at the other end of the basement of the castle, faint light filtering in.

" _I'm going to see what happened and try to help or save Daisy if she got kidnapped."_

"Good luck, bro, and try to be safe."

With that, Luigi scampered off towards the stairs and sat at the base. Stairs, his age-old enemy. Luigi, with a growl of determination, stepped back before doing a running jump, using his tail to guide him. Luigi stuck the landing, luckily not fumbling as he landed. The bad news was that he only made it about two steps up the stairs from the floor. Normally, this would discourage Luigi heavily, but Daisy was in danger and he had to do something about it. With an unmanly squeaking noise of determination, Luigi crouched down, touching his chest fur to the floor, before letting out a massive burst of energy that sent him high into the air. Using his tail to slow his descent, Luigi managed to float over to the top of the steps.

Luigi let out a bark of celebration before raising his nose into the air in confusion. He was now smelling the dog he had heard earlier. The royal family here had no pets and no guard dogs. What was the dog doing here? Luigi cautiously crept down the hall, noticing all was suspiciously silent. Suddenly in a flash, an assailant tackled Luigi to the ground, Luigi noticing the attacker was a bulldog that far outmatched him in size.

" _What's a mangy cur like you doing in this castle?_ " Growled the bulldog.

Luckily Luigi had years under his belt of fighting things that were far bigger and stronger than him (Hi, Bowser) and had some practice in dealing with these situations. Luigi rolled out of the other canine's grip, not wanting to fight him, and quickly fell back away from the aggressive dog.

" _Excuse me? I am not a mangy cur! And besides, what are you doing in this castle? Daisy and King Richard don't own any pets! So if anything, you're the mangy cur!_ "

The bulldog growled before abruptly stopping and lifting his snout high in the air. " _Follow me and I'll show you who's who._ "

Luigi, not knowing what else to do or make of this strange dog showing up in the castle after he heard a scream, followed obediently into the throne room. Sitting on the King's throne were some empty robes, but the dog didn't seem interested in that, but instead went off to the side, poking his snout at a rectangular object covered in what appeared to be a velvet tapestry. The bulldog delicately bit down on the cloth and yanked back, removing the cloth and revealing a mirror. Diamonds and Topaz embellished the richly carved gold frame, making the center made out of a type of crystal almost glow with a life of its own.

" _Magic Mirror, mirror of true form, which gold and saphires do adorn, show everything as it was born!_ "

After the bulldog finished his chant, the reflection from the mirror showing the bulldog began to warp and move before reflecting... King Richard.

Luigi took a step forward in shock as King Richard looked at how he should be in what could only be described as a type of sadness. Unfortunately, Luigi didn't realize that he had stepped into the mirror's "range". King Richard caught out of the corner of his eye the other strange dog's reflection begin to warp and move before settling down on a very familiar form. One that he didn't particularly like.

King Richard turned from his true reflection, forgetting it for a moment as he looked at Luigi and growled deeply.

" _You..._ "

XxX

 _And that's all for this chapter! It's been 6 months since I last updated, I know, but let me tell you, writing a coherent plot while remembering everything and creating as few plotholes as possible is no tiny miracle. But I knew this had to be done, so I sat down one day and buckled down, eventually creating this. Since I'm going to slowly create shorter and shorter author's notes as time goes on, I'm going to reward you now with some deleted parts of the plot for this story! So to start off, Luigi in this story wears a bandanna, but it wasn't always so. When he got dressed for the meeting of nations he put on a clip-on bowtie and that was originally going to get stuck in his fur and that was going to be what he wore before I thought of the bandanna. It really is rather funny with Luigi's balloon world and stuff coming out..._

 _Another part that had to get changed was when Luigi had a dream that he was human and Daisy was telling him "come play with me". Let me tell you, that scene was originally a lot raunchier until I realized kids were reading this, so I went back and changed it and made it a lot less... well, you know._

 _There were originally five Prism Star shards, but I cut it down to four because I found the cut part of the plot, Mario and Luigi getting caught in in blizzard in the snow land, unnecessary and that this story is planned to be long enough as is. This story, as of now, is over 60,000 words long, which is regular novel length and I'm nowhere near done!_

 _There was even a cut part of the plot for this chapter! Originally, Kamek was going to hypnotize everyone in the castle to do his bidding and the zombie-like people were going to search for Mario and Luigi. Daisy, needing to get that stone tablet, had to act like the zombies along with Luigi and find the tablet. Then when Mario was freed, Kamek trying to make a last stand, took them both and transformed King Richard. All in all, this was cut due to chapter length and it was rather hard to think up explinations that wouldn't contradict themselves later on._

 _So that's all for now! Also, since the chapters are being written on a phone and it takes longer, I originally intended this to be about 25 chapters, but it's going to probably be longer than that, since I have full intentions to finish this story with what I have._

 _All in all, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please do leave a review with general thoughts and comments on the story or the deleted parts. It's because of you, the reader, that I have come so far. Even if this story is ten years old at the time of you reading it and is long done, please leave reviews so I can (assuming I'm still using the same e-mail ten years from now) read them. Reviews truly do help me improve and light up my evening._

 _I have nothing else to say, so until next chapter, Norm out. And don't forget to create an army of roombas with knives taped to them! It is the only true effective way to take over the world!_


	18. Chapter 18: An Unlikely Team

_Norman Whitesmith back again with another chapter of Kitsune Curse! But it's extra special because it's the story's one year anniversary of being put up! One year ago, I made the stupid decision to put up the first chapter of a weird story I had and it actually worked out! I just needed to make a chapter for today. So much rushing later, this is complete with the proofreading help of Space Dimentio! Thanks for all the help! I don't know how much they will help me in the future, but thanks! Also, I will be going back to past chapters and removing the author's note as well as fixing formatting errors. But enough on that. Without further ado, dukes and ducheys, here's a very special chapter 18._

XxX

Chapter 18: An Unlikely Team

XxX

Luigi stared at the growling bulldog, absolutely terrified, his reflection in the magic mirror reflecting the same amount of terror just as it used to look on him when he was human.

King Richard moved towards Luigi in sluggish movements, murder ablaze in his eyes as he slowly stalked forward.

" _You were behind all this, weren't you?_ " King Richard growled, drawing nearer.

Luigi backed away as the king-turned-dog advanced. " _What are you talking about!? I had nothing to do with any of this happening to you!"_

" _I don't believe you. I think I can see what's happening here. You made a deal with Kamek, not sure what, but it was probably to get my throne, so you snuck in by manipulating my poor daughter Daisy. But things went sour, didn't they? The deal went wrong and you ended up just like I am now: a stupid dog!"_

Luigi was taken aback. While he did none of those things and wouldn't even dream of taking advantage of Daisy (he was interested in her, not her status), that would be a logical conclusion for the king to make from what information he did have. However, that was far worse because that also meant that it would be harder for Luigi to disprove it.

 _"Listen, I don't know how many usurpers you deal with on any kind of regular basis, but I'm not one of them!"_

 _"You aren't convincing me fast enough,"_ said King Richard, snapping his jaws open and shut as he slowly stalked closer to Luigi who had hit a corner. _"You have ten seconds before I rip your face off."_

Luigi began to howl out his story in a panic, knowing the King was going to do that to him if he didn't give a satisfactory answer. _"I'M A FOX BECAUSE I ACCIDENTALY DRANK A POTION MEANT FOR MY BROTHER AND NOW MARIO AND I HAVE TO LOOK FOR THE CURE AND A PART OF IT WAS IN THIS CASTLE AND DAISY WAS WILLINGLY HELPING US TO TRY AND GET IT!"_

King Richard was surprised at the sudden outburst that seemed believable, but he remembered one thing. _"If you were turned into a fox long ago, how were you in the throne room talking to me?"_

 _"LISTEN, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! Daisy's life is on the line. In the throne room that was Mario wearing my clothes and I was around Daisy's neck pretending to be a scarf. Does that satisfy you? And besides, how come you couldn't tell that it wasn't me with Daisy? I mean, Mario was shorter, a lot pudgier, and his voice was even higher pitched than mine ever was!"_

 _"It's not my fault I couldn't find my contacts or glasses this morning! Those servants don't always make sure you have everything! But for whatever reason, my eyes are working fine without contacts now. How come you-"_

 _"Listen,"_ yipped Luigi, _"it was my fault for asking that last question and starting this conversation over, but please believe me when I say I'm on your side. And as much as neither of us is going to like this, we're going to need to team up if we want a fighting chance against Kamek. Assuming we live through all of this, I will answer allll your questions when we get Daisy back, alright? Can we put our differences aside just until we get the wand from Kamek, change you back, and rescue Daisy?"_

 _"Fine,"_ replied King Richard begrudgingly. _"But only for my daughter."_

 _"I wouldn't expect you to do this for any other reason. To start off, we need a plan. There are two approaches: the full on attack route or the outsmarting him route. Which one do you think we should do?"_ Luigi asked.

 _"I think we should-"_ King Richard started before suddenly in a whoosh of wind, Kamek appeared, Daisy absent, but looking as if he meant business.

"Well, well, well, I got a couple of mutts here! I knew leaving the king here would attract a no-good plumber hero!"

Both Luigi and King Richard began to growl from the bottom of their throats, Luigi's fur begining to bristle at the base of his tail.

"None of that," said Kamek before focusing his gaze on Luigi. "Meet me on the roof of the western turret before noon if you want to see Daisy alive again. Bring the Prism Star shard."

 _"I will never give the shard to you, even if I had it!"_ Luigi yelped in cold determination at Kamek, his tail lashing back and forth on the ground as his eyes seemed to have fires burning within them.

"I'm assuming you said 'never', so I would like to give you a warning of what will happen to Daisy if you don't give me what I want."

Kamek pulled his wand out of his robe and before King Richard could react, Kamek shot a beam at him. Luigi, terrified, quickly leapt over, shielding the king from the shock. While Luigi didn't like the king too much, he needed to be protected. The shock of what had to be electricity hit Luigi's body full on, turning his vision black as well as making him twitch uncontrollably. He must have passed out temporarily, as he came to with the sensation of something prodding his flank.

Luigi opened his weary clouded eyes to see a bulldog's snout in his face, also catching a glimpse of King Richard's paw near his side.

 _"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up at all. You've only been out for about a minute, but Kamek has left."_

Luigi realized he was lying on his side and quickly shuffled to his belly and put his wobbly legs beneath himself.

 _"That hurt..."_ Luigi said to himself before facing King Richard. _"We've got no time to lose. Let's go to the tower meeting place and talk strategy on the way there."_

Luigi began to pad off, slowly at first on his paws that felt uneasy and shaky, but slowly getting faster and more sure of his footing. Luigi waved for the canine king to follow him with his tail. King Richard was oddly silent before suddenly blurting out. _"Why did you take the hit for me?"_

Luigi sighed. _"I didn't do it for you, I did it for Daisy. You're an undeniably good dad and it isn't my place to let her lose her father if I can help it."_

A long silence ensued.

 _"Thank you, Luigi,"_ growled the king docilely.

 _"You're welcome... but I think it's pretty clear that we can't try to overpower Kamek, so we're going to have to outsmart him. But if I may, how much fighting experience do you have?"_

 _"None that will help at all in this situation."_

Luigi suddenly got an idea. _"I got it! You can distract Kamek and I can sneak up from behind and incapacitate him! I think I have a plan, but I need your complete trust. Will you obey my orders no matter how crazy they seem?"_

Silence ensued for a few seconds before the king, who had never had to follow orders from a lower level before, answered. _"I will do it, but if we go into this and I die, I will personally come up from the underworld and haunt your sorry fluffy butt. Got it?"_

 _"I wouldn't expect anything less, so here's the plan..."_

XxX

Kamek snickered to himself. It was all going better than according to plan and he was on track for a raise at this point. Right next to him was an orange princess, gagged and useless, who he believed to be named... Lily? Oh well, it doesn't matter. She was the green loser's beloved and served as the perfect bait. There was no way Luigi wasn't going to fall for this trap.

The screeching of a door being flung open behind Kamek drew his attention. It was the bulldog growling in fury. This obviously wasn't too much of a threat for Kamek, but he might as well put on a show while taking out Dandelion's father. But wait, how did the dog, with no hands open the door to the roof... better not think about it.

"If it isn't the father of Pansy, reduced to a dumb animal. To what do I owe the pleasure? Oh well, if it's about Cosmos, you're not getting her back," Kamek laughed, further infuriating the king by messing up Daisy's name.

King Richard slowly stalked forward, his eyes reflecting murderous intent, making even Kamek shiver in apprehension of the fight. Maybe the dog wouldn't be as easy to take down as he initially thought. The king inched closer, the growling only increasing in intensity before... suddenly turning around and chasing the stub of a tail on his backside.

Kamek stared at the dog growling and biting at his backside dumbfounded. The bulldog started barking at his tail before noticing something off to the side and quickly running off after it, panting as he ran. King Richard ran back with the object in his mouth and placed it down in front of where Kamek floated, revealing it to be a stick, and stared at Kamek with an irresistible cute look of playfulness in his eyes. Kamek stared back for a second, speechless, before looking down at his wand. Did he overdue the magic or something and fry the king's brain?

Kamek slowly bent down and picked up the stick; the king's rump shook back and forth along with his tail in exhilaration, and he whimpered I'm needy excitement. The stick was thrown five feet away and the dog dove after it and picked it up with a level of enthusiasm uncharacteristic for only picking up a stick.

"Okay..." Kamek said, uncertain of what exactly was happening, mainly the fact of the dog somehow magically opening the door just to play fetch confusing him, before getting caught in the puppy-dog eyes.

Kamek couldn't take it anymore and absolutely melted, hopping off his broomstick and petting the bulldog. King Richard was loving every moment of it and flopped over on his belly, thumping the ground rapidly with his left hind leg.

"Who's a good boy, who's a good boy?" Kamek asked in a deep voice before setting his wand down to the side and scratching the dog's belly with both of his hands.

Kamek instantly realized his mistake as he felt something hard and heavy crash into the back of his head, accompanied by the sensation of being bitten by tiny and sharp teeth.

"Aww, stinking bishop," muttered Kamek as he went out cold.

Daisy was holding Kamek's wand that she cracked him in the back of the head with, and Luigi was also standing nearby in triumph.

King Richard stood up, also triumphant, but lacking a bit more in the dignity department.

XxX

 _Hope you enjoyed the chapter!_ _I'm so happy and blessed that this story has been continued and received so much support. Please continue to give that support by reviewing and telling me how to improve. And as a sidenote, King Richard being a bulldog is referencing the Life's Ruff episode of the DIC Mario cartoon. If you want to watch it, it's up on YouTube. I also really enjoy reading comments on the plot and speculation on what's going to happen next. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out! And remember that mentions of cheese will come into your fanfic if you start watching too much Wallace and Gromit._

Another special thanks to Space Dimentio for proofreading.


	19. Chapter 19: Man to Man

_Norman Whitesmith here for chapter nineteen of Kitsune Curse! What an adventure this has been and continued to be! As some of you might have noticed, chapter one is different and says this story is under construction, which it is. I'm finally going back and fixing all those mistakes (especially paragraph ones) so this story is more readable._

 _Another change is that I'm erasing author's notes as I go, so those too will be gone eventually. Even this one will be erased. For now, my goal for chapter editing is at least one chapter a week. That being said, this about wraps up Sarasaland and next chapter will be moving on to the next star shard location. All in all, I'm done stalling, so without further ado, Chapter 19._

 _Another special thanks to Space Dimentio for proofreading this!_

XxX

Chapter 19: Man to Man

XxX

Rushing down the hallway to the dungeon, Daisy dragged behind her the unconscious magikoopa Kamek. While he was given a pretty hard hit to the head, Daisy didn't want to take any chances of him waking up before he got put in a jail cell, where he could remain without hurting others until the king, her father, could decide what to do with him. Speaking of her father, he and Luigi were quickly following her from behind, panting as their short and stubby little canine legs struggled to keep up.

' _Maybe,_ ' thought Luigi between a pant, ' _this is why Mario was always telling me to slow down when we'd walk as kids. This is exhausting!_ '

Daisy quickly found the best cell and shoved Kamek into it and locked it with the keys that were hanging on a wooden peg nearby; of course she made sure she still had his wand. Luigi and King Richard caught up to her and sat down, still panting, but relieved that Kamek had gotten taken care of. With luck, he wouldn't be out causing trouble anymore.

" _So tell me again how you made it to the roof, Luigi?_ " asked King Richard as he looked at Luigi.

" _I can do a thing with my tail where I can spin it fast enough to hover a bit. While you used the stairs and door, I went out a window and used the ledges and hover jumped my way up, which by the way is terrifying and exhausting and I'm never doing that again. How did you open the doo-_ "

" _We don't talk about that,_ " interrupted King Richard before he suddenly felt a hand on his head, causing him to quickly recoil and growl.

Daisy, who had reached out a hand to her father, flinched away before noticing the apologetic look in the bulldog's eyes.

" _It really, for a lack of a better word, sucks to not be able to talk, doesn't it?_ " asked King Richard as he almost mournfully looked at his daughter.

Luigi gave the fox equivalent of a chuckle before answering the king. " _You have no idea. And having no hands to do anything with to top it off? It absolutely sucks! My own brother thought I had lost my mind and become a wild animal inside. It was sad to not be able to comfort him. It's sad to not be able to tell Daisy how I feel-_ " Luigi nervously eyed King Richard after the last comment slipped out, but realized the King was too lost in the thoughts of what Luigi said to notice the implications of the last comment.

Daisy looked down at the conversation going on in front of her that she had no hope of understanding before realizing she had the wand. "Daddy, are you ready to be changed back?"

King Richard, still not having all of his answers and knowing he wouldn't be able to understand Luigi later, shook his head before pointing a paw at Luigi and then holding it up to Daisy. Luckily, Daisy understood this as a "just a minute, I have to talk to him" gesture and patiently sat back to wait.

King Richard turned to Luigi. " _So do you also need to be turned back with the wand?_ "

Luigi paused for a moment, hopeful at the realization that this might be the "easy way out" before remembering all the data Professor E. Gadd gave him after examining him.

" _Unfortunately, I'm not sure if that could work. We don't have all the time in the world, really, so I'll give you the abridged explanation of everything. I got turned into this because I apparently drank something and it was tainted with a potion put there by Kamek. Mario was the intended target, it seems, but I got it. After examining all the effects, it made me younger... and also I now can't help but chase any sticks I see. But sticks aside, if we use the wand to make me human, assuming it would work, it might not make me my proper age, and if I'm not an adult, I might not have my memories and once those are magically erased, I don't think I could get them back. All in all, too many complications._ "

" _So what are you doing here, then?_ "

" _The professor I mentioned earlier told me of a mythical star that might be able to restore me to what I once was without any hitches... well, other than having to find it in the first place and assemble it to use it. But Mario, who was dressed as and masquerading as me earlier, and Daisy, and I found the supposed star shard in the basement and Mario rushed into the chamber and got trapped in there. He should still be there unless something else went wrong._ "

King Richard nodded.

" _Considering that a villain was sent after you, this indicates that this is in fact a big deal and we shouldn't let this mythical star fall into the wrong hands, so as king, I will do my part to keep the kingdom, and perhaps the world in this situation, safe and I will lend what assistance is necessary in your quest._ "

Luigi, who was secretly wondering if there was a class that taught you to make bold kingly declarations like that, nodded back.

" _Thank you, your majesty. When Daisy turns you back, she'll explain what we need. It's some sort of stone tablet, but she knows what it is better than I do._ "

King Richard beckoned to Daisy, indicating he was ready to be turned back to human. The wand was waved, creating glowing symbols in the air before a beam shot at King Richard, engulfing him in a warm glow. As soon as the glow died down, King Richard stood, as glorious as he ever was (luckily in his clothes) and quickly turned his attention to Daisy.

"Let us deal with this problem as quickly as possible. What is it that you need, dear daughter?"

"We need the family tablet to get Mario out of the area downstairs," responded Daisy, not missing a beat.

King Richard nodded. "Then it shall be done. Let us go to the throne room and grab it."

King Richard, before Luigi could protest, quickly bent down and scooped up the fox kit in his arms. While the king was holding Luigi stiffly, he was luckily holding Luigi correctly and comfortably enough. Setting off at a brisk pace, the royal family walking didn't waste a second getting to the throne room. King Richard went up to his throne and reached behind it before a loud pop sounded and the king withdrew his hand from the throne. In his hand was a slate-grey stone, somehow seeming as enigmatic as it did powerful somehow.

He gingerly placed the stone into Daisy's palm with a solemn "do as you must" before also placing Luigi in her arms.

"And make sure you hold onto him tight," said King Richard.

Luigi looked up at Daisy, happiness overcoming him as he realized how easily he could have lost her today if his plan didn't work. Luigi couldn't help but start to wag his tail as he started panting happily, trying to take in as much of Daisy's perfume as he could. Suddenly, Luigi felt a hand grab his tail, stopping it in its tracks. Crooking his head backwards, Luigi saw King Richard's firm glare looking at him with a 'not around my daughter, you don't' reflecting in his eyes.

"It would be best," said King Richard as he let go of Luigi's tail and watched it flop down limply, "if you went and freed Mario immediately. I would also like to speak with him after you get him out."

Daisy nodded before briskly walking out of the room, Luigi in her arms making sure he didn't do as much as an ear-flick while the king was looking. Daisy quickly made her way down the hallway to the stairs before suddenly stopping and starting to laugh.

"Man!" laughed Daisy, as her face went a little red and tears started streaming out of her eyes. "Talk about shut down, Luigi! He just completely did a 'not around my daughter, you don't' thing! That was hillarious!"

" _Not if you were on the recieving end of it!_ " yipped Luigi, but even he couldn't help but wag his tail again, luckily with no intervening kings to stop him.

Daisy quickly wrapped up her laughing and continued going down the stairs, stroking Luigi affectionately as she went. Discovering Luigi seemed to have a sweetspot behind his ears that made him wag his tail faster, Daisy gave him the ultimate scratching. Being caught up in the pure bliss of someone giving him a good scratch, Luigi was almost disappointed when they reached the giant stone door to free Mario and he had to be set down on the ground.

"Well," said Daisy as she bent down and held the tablet out in front of her, eyeing the hole where it would fit, "let's hope this works."

"Oh, guys!" Luigi heard the muffled voice from behind the door. "You're back! I'm guessing the problems were sorted out?"

"Yep!" shouted Daisy back. "We'll get you out in a second, and daddy wants to talk to you."

" _No! He'll only make fun of my weight again! I already look like a further caracature of my former self now than I did five minutes ago!_ " chittered Mario, sounding like a raccoon.

"What was that, man?" Daisy asked, clearly not understanding a word of what Mario just said.

" _Big Bro, I could understand that. I think you can also speak the animal language now, instead of just hearing it."_

" _Just great,_ " Mario tittered before quickly switching back to English. "Luigi understood what I said. I guess I can speak the animal language now. But either way, please let me out. I think I've finished transforming while waiting down here."

Daisy obliged and placed the stone tablet in the hole, gasping in awe as blue light snaked through the tablet, making it glow brightly. As the glowing started to lose its intensity, characters in the latin alphabet started to glow softly, slowly becoming readable.

Daisy looked at the words before gaining a befuddled look to her face. "It says 'if door to treasure chamber gets stuck, pull on safety lever inside to open'. What?"

" _WHAT!?!"_ howled Luigi, " _You're telling me that there was a safety lever all this time and we could have avoided the hunt for the tablet entirely!? And not to mention, could have gotten Mario out early to help with the fight? Son of a-_ "

Daisy heard the angry barks coming from the fox kit at her feet that somehow sounded suspiciously like profanity. "What is he saying?" asked Daisy through the door.

"You don't want to know."

"...Either way, look for the safety lever and pull it."

A sudden rumbling was heard as the door opened, sending a plume of dust as a shape darted out of the chamber.

"Let's get out of here and talk upstairs!" yelled Mario as he ran, relieved to be out of what could have very well been his tomb.

"Yeah, Luigi, let's go," said Daisy as she picked up the kitsune that had calmed down and started going up the stairs. "Let's leave this creepy place."

As Daisy left and closed the door to the basement, two hieroglyphic figures of muscular guardians lit up inside the tomb.

"I tell you, Charles, I was really hoping to trap that guy in here permanently and have him meet his doom by filling this place up with snakes! I mean, these opportunities only come around once every thousand years! But of course this guy had to be 'pure of heart' and also had to straight up guess what I wanted to do! I mean you've got to surprise them so they never see their end coming!" said the first one.

The other figure chuckled. "Oh well. We'll stumble across some real villain next time, Benny. How about we use spiders on the next guy though. There are people out there who like snakes, but there are rarely people who like poisonous spiders! I think we can pull a real ringer on the next unfortunate soul who has bad intentions. But first let's close this door and get back to our game of Uno. I believe it was my turn before that weird fat guy came in."

"No, it was totally mi-"

The voices were cut off as the stone door closed, leaving the treasure chamber to be forgotten until the next man comes by to face the pure wrath of Benny and Charles.

XxX

"Come on, Mario, come out," said Daisy impatiently tapping her foot.

"But you'll only laugh at me," came the muffled response from behind the drape.

Mario had sprinted up the stairs first before Daisy and Luigi, but found what he looked like as soon as he touched the light and panicked, rushing behind some drapes so Daisy and Luigi couldn't see him.

Luigi sighed before wriggling his way out of Daisy's arms and jumping to the floor. Luigi quickly went behind the curtain.

"Luigi! Please go awa- what are you doing? Ouch! Let go!"

Slowly Luigi came out from behind the drapes, his mouth closed around and a giant brown and black striped tanuki tail. As Luigi pulled out the stumbling figure further, it became clear to Daisy why Mario had decided to hide. He looked ridiculous! But even so, he needed reassurance. Daisy took a few steps closer to Mario and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Mario. It's going to be alright, no matter what happens. You're going to fix this."

Mario looked up at Daisy gratefully. True to the professor's description of what was going to happen, Mario was much shorter than he used to be with a proportionately larger belly. His gut was like the statues one would see of a Tanuki where the said animal wore a vest with no hope of hypothetically wearing a shirt, this being confirmed by the bottom of Luigi's shirt resting on top of Mario's stomach. Completing the look were Mario's ears completely animalistic and peaking out from his hair on the top of his head.

However, even with the description of the changes given by E. Gadd, Mario seemed to also have gained other things too. Mainly, he had the start of whiskers growing out of the base of his nose, along with bags underneath his eyes, though he was not lacking any sleep.

Overall, it was clear to see why Mario didn't want Daisy and Luigi to see him.

Mario, still feeling mild discomfort in his tail turned to see Luigi biting down on it. "Would you mind letting go, please?"

Luigi quickly let go. " _I'll have you know that I wasn't biting down as hard as I could have! I was only using the necessary force to get you out of there! And by the way, can we see the Prism Star shard?_ "

Mario, picking up Luigi and putting him in his lap, reached into his overall pocket and pulled out the shard. The sun, catching the shard just right, splayed an entire rainbow onto the wall, even including some colors that didn't seem to exist elsewhere.

" _Well, you were right earlier when you said we certainly had a magical something. Hopefully it's the Prism Star and hopefully it can fix both of us._ "

Daisy stared at the shard, in awe of how the bros were seemingly under-reacting to finding a magic object. But then again, both of them, even Luigi, would go on adventures a lot and face magical items every time, making the extraordinary ordinary to them.

"Hey guys, you can talk later, but I think it would be best to go see daddy first."

Mario grumbled a bit as he stood up, his new weight making moving a bit harder than it was before.

"Letsa go," Mario grumbled, his tail drooping.

XxX

Daisy saw the blonde colored bullet speeding back to her as fast as the speed of sound. Luigi, approaching Daisy, skidded to a stop in front of her, dropping a stick at her feet while panting happily. Luigi, after panting for a few seconds, looked up at Daisy before barking in what seemed to be an angry fashion. After King Richard apologized to Mario and gave his blessing for the bros to take the star shard, Daisy had taken Luigi to the courtyard in the middle of the castle and quickly realized that Luigi couldn't help but chase any sticks that are thrown. While Luigi didn't seem to be the happiest puppers, Daisy was sure enjoying herself.

"What are you trying to tell me?" asked Daisy in a manner that made it clear she knew exactly what Luigi was protesting at.

Daisy bent down and picked up the stick before looking towards one of the windows of the castle, seeing her dad still looking outside. Ever since she took Luigi outside, her dad wasn't taking his eyes off the small fox kit and seemed to watch his every move. Daisy threw the stick once more, seeing her dad's eyes move along with the small kitsune chasing after the stick. As like the last time... and the other five hundred times Daisy did this since coming outside, Luigi returned, dropping the stick and panting happily once more.

A sudden rap on the window drew Daisy's attention to her dad, who was now looking at her and pointing towards the door to the courtyard. Daisy, scooping up Luigi as she went, exited the courtyard promptly, the stick waiting on the ground, having been forgotten once more.

Weaving through the castle, it didn't take the desert princess long to find where her dad was waiting, holding the wand taken from Kamek.

Staring at and addressing Luigi, King Richard began to speak. "I've decided we're going to have a talk. Just you and me, man to man," looking up at Daisy, he spoke again. "And there's only one way to go about this. Put Luigi down and be sure to change me back when we're done."

In a second, a flash surrounded King Richard and he was a bulldog once more, the wand clattering to the floor next to him. Daisy obeyed and placed Luigi on the floor.

" _Follow me, young man,_ " said the king, leading Luigi towards the throne room. Luigi wasn't particularly thrilled at the prospects of a conversation with a king who hated him with every fiber of his being.

Having reached the giant doors to the throne room, both canines entered, Luigi still not quite sure if this was going to end well for him. King Richard approached the magic mirror, sitting down next to it.

" _Come sit next to me,_ " the king said as Luigi complied and took his place next to the king, Luigi making sure his tail wasn't touching him. " _Now, as we have this conversation, we shall look at our reflections in the mirror only. This is a talk for men, and I am doing my best to make sure that this is done properly given the circumstances. Understand?_ "

Luigi, having no words, nodded his head. King Richard chanted the incantation, the human reflections returning once more.

Luigi stared at his, the silver rimmed blue eyes staring back. His face, though clearly that of a man, had many boyish features that never went away. His hair was the perfect shade of ebony, the cowlicks perfectly giving his hair a unique style. Luigi let out a small whimper, the reflection responding with a single tear coming out of his eye, dripping down his face before falling and disappearing.

Luigi was always a bit self conscious, even though that was always classified as a "girl thing" and could never be brought up with other guys. When he looked in the mirror, he only saw the mistakes, not the true beauty. He couldn't bear his own reflection that he thought no one could love, not even him. From his freakish eye color to his big nose, he hated everything he saw.

But at that point, there in the throne room, Luigi loved what he used to be. Even his large nose, he loved. He never realized what he had. It was unique. He couldn't wait to be human again one day, of course under the assumption he succeeded in this quest with his brother.

While the whole "human again" bit made him feel like singing something from a cartoon, but he needed to focus on what was happening at the moment.

Luckily, King Richard, who in a rare mood was feeling empathetic for the fox kit being stuck the way he is with a seemingly impossible cure, noticed Luigi's emotion and was letting him take the moment he needed. After all, with the events of earlier that day of being a bulldog, it was hitting close to home for him too.

Having felt he mourned sufficiently, Luigi made eye contact with King Richard in the reflection.

" _Now, I'm going to hop right into this and if this is to get anywhere, I need straight answers and I expect you to give them to me. So you like my daughter, correct?_ "

" _Of course I like her, your majesty._ "

" _You know what I mean. I'm asking if you love her._ "

Luigi swallowed a lump in his throat before answering.

" _Y-yes, your majesty."_

 _"Good. And you're more than willing to protect her life even at the cost of your own even, if the need ever be?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Then I can't believe I'm actually making this offer with you, but after today, you showed me something. Before, I thought you were a low down jerk who was a coward and was only here to steal her status and the crown, even though that's technically impossible with your status as a peasant..._

 _Anyways, today showed me that yes, you are a cowardly peasant, but you truly do care about Daisy. You went headlong into saving her and me without as much as a second thought to your own safety. You're truly devoted to my daughter, and that's something I want in my family, so here's the deal. If everything goes according to plan and you manage to get the star shards and cure yourself, you have my blessing to date Daisy._

 _And yes, that means if things truly work out between you two, you will be king after my days are past... just between you and me, but with todays princes, you seem almost over qualified to date Daisy._

 _And if you fail your quest and can't fix yourself, but are still alive, there will be a place at the castle for you. While you can't date Daisy if this happened, you can be a royal personal guard for Daisy. So do you agree to this and that you wholeheartedly want this?"_

Luigi couldn't help but let out a howl of joy. He could date Daisy! And with her father's blessing!

" _I-I-I wouldn't want anything in the world more than that, your majesty!"_

What Luigi didn't notice was the tears of joy running down his reflection's face.

XxX

 _And what a chapter! Longest one I've written for this story (I believe Snack Basket is the longest one I've written on here) since I've started writing on a phone. Looks like Luigi has things looking up for him... but it's funny how life can make things like that just before you crash to the ground. Also, Benny and Charles are unimportant to the rest of the plot. They were only there for a joke._

 _And yes, I am self-conscious of my appearance, as crazy as it seems. Now to all you who share that struggle, I know it's hard and you can't always see it, but you're beautiful. Everyone is unique and just because you don't fit a certain standard of everyone else, doesn't mean you're ugly. Majorities have been wrong before. And if they try to put you down, they're wrong now._

 _That's what I have to say and it's an important lesson that even I haven't fully learned yet, but once you do learn it, you can be a lot happier. Please do leave a review with thoughts, feelings, and or speculation, as well as constructive criticism. I welcome constructive criticism! I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And don't forget to write Grandma a letter! You promised her you would years ago and still haven't gotten to it..._


End file.
